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AMERICAN 
MINIATURES 


1730—1850 


ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-THREE PORTRAITS 
SELECTED WITH A DESCRIPTIVE ACCOUNT 


By 
HARRY B. WEHLE 


Curator of Paintings 
THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART 


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A BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY 
OF THE ARTISTS 


By 
THEODORE BOLTON 


GARDEN CITY PUBLISHING COMPANY, INC. 
Garden City New York 


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; COPYRIGHT, 1927, BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE 
& COMPANY. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES AT THE 
COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y. 


FOREWORD 


Tae American public has registered of recent years a very widespread and vivid in- 
terest in the personalities and in the fine and applied arts of this country in earlier 
days. In response to such a growing appetite for the finer things of America’s past, 
the authorities of the Metropolitan Museum of Art determined to hold this year an 
exhibition of early miniature portraits, feeling that this was one of the American arts 
which had thus far failed to receive its due share of attention, == : 

The miniature portrait, because of its very size, presents peculiar difficulties of 
attribution and classification. The factor of pictorial composition plays little part in 
such works, while important considerations are the artists’ personal chords of colour 
and the almost microscopic minutiz of individual style. Neither of these qualities of 
the miniature lend themselves particularly well to recording by means of the photo- 
graph, which has proved such an important factor in the classification of other sorts 
of art objects. Thus the bringing together for the purposes of exhibition of a consider- 
able number of the miniatures themselves gave such a valuable opportunity for direct 
comparison that it seemed well to improve the occasion. Hence this book, which con- 
tains certain new attributions but which I well realize is only a step in the exploration 
of this sufficiently appealing branchlet of art. The value of the book will depend 
largely upon the numerous illustrations both in colour and in black-and-white, which 
are in practically all cases the same sizes as the miniatures themselves. _ 

Before me have gone William Dunlap, the “American Vasari,” who was by no 
means a stupid man, and from whose pages I am not ashamed to draw copiously, and 
also Anne Hollingsworth Wharton, who writes with delightful style and, metaphori- 
cally speaking, knows the American social register of four and five generations ago as 
intimately as any living social aspirant knows the sacred contents of such actual 
volumes up to date. 

To place at the reader’s disposal many matters of fact concerning the lives of the 
miniature painters under consideration, the compilation of which would have daunted 
me and which would have badly clogged the flow of the General Introduction, Theo- 


Vv 


vi FOREWORD 


dore Bolton, who has written before this on the subject of American miniatures, was 
called upon to supply his Biographical Dictionary. I am also indebted to him for cer- 
tain suggestions, as I am to Mr. Ruel P. Tolman, Mr. John Hill Morgan, and Mr. 
Arthur P. Howard. To the courtesy of Mr. Horace Wells Sellers I owe the knowledge 
of certain facts about the Peale family, and I have Miss Eleanor B. Saxe of the Metro- 
politan Museum of Art to thank for her great kindness in dating for me many minia.. 
tures by means of the sitters’ costumes and styles of dressing the hair. The photographs 
and notes at the Frick Art Reference Library have been of value in helping toward 
tracing some of the miniatures. Naturally, also, I owe very special gratitude to the 
owners who have so courteously allowed me to study their precious miniatures and to 
use them as illustrations in this book. The owners’ names are to be found in the List of 
Illustrations. 

Perhaps I should add here some explanation of the chronological groupings into 
which I have divided my material. The division of early American objects into Colonial, 
Revolutionary, and Early Republican (or Early Constitutional) has become so cus- 
tomary as to seem almost obligatory, and I have no doubt that some students, if 
any should read this book, will consider as quite beside the point my chapter headings 
which are based old-fashionedly upon the Eighteenth and Nineteenth centuries. 
This simple old classification was reverted to quite deliberately, however, for it has 
seemed to me that, by a rare stroke of good luck for our fallible memories, the passage 
from the one century into the other coincides about as nicely as one could wish with a 
certain change in the spirit of American painting. 

Art has, in fact, not to do with underlying philosophic or political causes but sim- 
ply with their social consequences. These social consequences which, in the instance we 
are considering, no doubt sprang from the high cost of European wars, the writings of 
Rousseau, and a score of other causes well back in the Eighteenth Century, are 
sharply noticeable in America around the year 1800. The Declaration of Independence 
came in 1776, but it is the general enthusiasm over Thomas Jefferson’s rumpled woollen 
stockings which times the actual percolation of the republican idea into the American 
mind. Applied to miniature portraits this idea surely never came with the Revolu- 
tionary War, or else the confusion, e.g., of Copley’s miniatures, painted before 1774, 
with Dunkerley’s and Benbridge’s, painted twelve to fifteen years later, would never 
have occurred. No observer with the slightest experience would hesitate to recognize 
as an Eighteenth Century work the average miniature by Ramage, most of whose 
tiny portraits were painted around 1790, just.as he would recognize such works as 


_ Robert Field’s miniature of James Earle (1802) and Jarvis’s Portrait of a Man (a very’ 


j 
3 
: 


FoREWORD Vil 


few years later) as having distinctly the Nineteenth Century flavour. The entire cul- 
tural revolution of the period, the transition from a polished aristocracy, of which 
Federalism was the last stand, to the ardent romantic naturalism of the Jeffersonians, 
may without frivolity be said to be symbolized by the change from the powdered 
wig to the (no doubt studied) informality of the natural hair cut shortish and brushed 
forward in the style called “au coup de vent.” 
H. B. W. 

New York, 1927. 


CONTENTS 


ForEWORD 
I. The Appeal of the Gaitere 
II. The Origin of Miniatures. 
Il. The Use of Ivory . 
IV. The Earliest American Works 
Colonists Portrayed in England—John RVAtsorme Theta 
VY. The Eighteenth Century in Philadelphia and Farther South 
Hesselius—Pratt—West—C. W. Peale—James Peale alton Rene 
bridge 
VI. The Eighteenth Century in New England . 
eet Pethinn--Dunkerley—Savage—Trumboll 
VII. Foreign Artists at the Turn of the Century 
Ramage—A. Robertson—W. Rohareenes Ficld en reHese putas 
VIII. The Ripe Moment 
Malbone—Trott—Fraser 
IX. Philadelphia Again—and Baltimore : 
Rembrandt Peale—Raphael Peale—Anna C. Peale Me: J. See 
Sully—Freeman—Saunders 
X. Early Nineteenth Century New York . 
Dickinson—Dunlap—Jarvis—Wood—Inman 
XI. New York Later in the Nineteenth Century : 
Cummings—Catlin—Dodge—N. Roser MaaDongslnann Hall 
XII. Nineteenth Century New England . 
Williams—Stuart—Goodridge—Alvan CliskeStaieen 
XIII. The March of Progress 


A BioGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY OF THE ARTISTS 


GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY . 


INDEX 


PAGE 


15 


24 


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 


[The miniatures are painted in water colours on ivory except where otherwise stated.] 


FRonTISPIECE MALBONE, Self-portrait. At the age of twenty. 
In Colour Signed: E. G. M. 1797. (Owned by R. T. Haines Halsey, Esq., 


Puate I. 


III. 


New York City.) 


Warson, Self-portrait, 1720. India ink and pencil on paper. 
Inscribed: AETS. 35. (Owned by Mrs. Frank E. Johnson, 

Yonkers, N. Y.). 

Artist Unknown, Portrait of Mrs. Henry Pratt, born, 

1711, Rebecca Claypoole. Painted about 1750-1760. (Owned 

by Mrs. William M. McCauley, Ithan, Pa.) 

Martuew Pratt, Portrait of Elizabeth West. Life size, 

in oils. (Owned by the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine 

Arts.) 

Matruew Pratt, Portrait of Mrs. Thomas Hopkinson. 
Painted about 1768-1770. (Owned by Mrs. Francis T. Red- 

wood, Baltimore, Md.) 
JEREMIAH THECUS, Portrait of Elizabeth Rothmaler. Life 

size, in oils. (Owned by the Brooklyn Museum.) . 
JEREMIAH Tuets, Portrait of Mrs. Jacob Motte (?). 

Born Elizabeth Martin; married 1725. (Qwned by Mrs. J. 

Madison Taylor, Philadelphia, Pa.) 
BENJAMIN WEST, Self-portrait. At the age of eighteen. 

West gave this miniature to his sweetheart, Miss Elizabeth 

Steele of Philadelphia. It was acquired from a member of her 

family. (Owned by Mrs. John Hill Morgan, New York City.) 
CHARLES WiLLSON PEALE, Portrait of George Wash- 

ington. Supposedly painted in 1777. (Owned by the Metro- 

politan Museum of Art.) i 
CHARLES WILLSON PEALE, Portrait of Comte de Ro- 

chambeau. About 1780. (Owned by Herbert DuPuy, Esq., 

Pittsburgh, Pa.) 


x1 


at page 2 


at page 3 


IV. 
In Colour 


List or ILLUSTRATIONS 


CHarues Wiutuson Peas, Portrait of Captain An- 
drew Summers, of Philadelphia, 1742-1806. (Owned by Her- 
bert DuPuy, Esq., Pittsburgh, Pa.). 
CHARLES WILLSON PEALE, Portrait of the Hon. 
William Bingham, died, 1804. Delegate to Congress and 
U. S. Senator. Painted in 1770. (Owned by Herbert DuPuy, 
Esq., Pittsburgh, Pa.) 
Cuarues WILLsoNn PEALE, Portrait of Rachel Brew- 
er Peale, his first wife, and their daughter. 1771. (Owned by 
Mrs. Sabin W. Colton, Jr., Bryn Mawr, Pao: 
CHARLES WILLSON PEALE, Portrait of Mrs. Michael 
Taney, of Calvert County, Md. Mother of Chief Justice 
Taney. (Owned by R. T. Haines Halsey, Esq., New York 
City) es ee ee 
JAMES PEALE, Portrait of his nephew, Rembrandt Peale. 
Signed: I P 1795. (Owned by Mrs. John Hill Morgan, New 
York City.) 
JAMES PEALE, Portrait of Mrs. William E. H ulings, 
1770-1854. (Owned by Herbert DuPuy, Esq., Pittsburgh, 
Pa.) 
CHARLES WILLSON PEALE, Portrait of George Wash- 
ington. Inscribed on frame: Presented by Washington to Anna 
Constable, 1785. (Owned by Miss Josephine B. Foster, New 
Haven, Conn.) 
CHARLES WILLSON PEALE, Portrait of Hannah 
Summers (Mrs. Andrew Summers). (Owned by Herbert Du- 
Puy, Esq., Pittsburgh, Pa.) 
ARCHIBALD ROBERTSON, Self-portrait. (Owned by 
Dr. John E. Stillwell, New York City.) Joke Wee 
JAMES Pra tg, Portrait of Mrs. John Wilson, of Borden- 
town, N. J. Signed: I P 1797. (Owned by R. T. Haines 
Halsey, Esq., New York City.) 
JamMES PEHaue, Portrait of his daughter, Anna Claypoole 
Peale, the miniature painter. (Owned by Ernest L. Parker, 
Esq., Philadelphia, Pa.) 
JAMES PEALE, Portrait of Paul Beck, Jr., 1757-1844 : 
xii 


at page 


at page 6 


List or ILLusTRATIONS 


merchant of Philadelphia. Signed: I P 1795. (Owned by 
Herbert DuPuy, Esq., Pittsburgh, Pa.) 

JAMES PEALE, Portrait of Mary Claypoole Peale and 
daughter. Signed: I P 1787. On the reverse is a self-portrait. 
(Owned by Herbert L. Pratt, Esq., New York City.) 
JAMES PEALE, Portrait of Mary Claypoole Peale. 1753- 
1829. Wife of the artist. Signed: J P 1788. On the reverse is 
a self-portrait. (Owned by Ernest L. Parker, Esq., Philadel- 
Poin a.) PAPO ar wen. ore TT Clade he 
JAMES PEALE, Portrait of Dr. William E. Hulings, of 
Philadelphia, 1765-1839. Signed: I P 1789. (Owned by Her- 
bert DuPuy, Esq., Pittsburgh, Pa.) 

JAMES PEALE, Portrait of Mrs. Mordecai Sheftall, of 


Savannah, born Nellie Bush of Philadelphia. Signed: I P 1797. 


(Owned by Mrs. Walter M. Brickner, New York City.) 
JAMES PEALE, Self-portrait. Signed: I P 1787. On re- 
verse, his wife and baby. Lent by Herbert L. Pratt, Esq., New 
York City. 

JAMES PEALE, Portrait of Anne-Anry Pierre Bellon de 
Pont, 1772-1854. Signed: I P 1797. (Owned by Herbert 
DuPuy, Esq., Pittsburgh, Pa.) 

JAMES PEALE, Portrait of Mrs. Josiah Pinckney, of 
Charleston. (Owned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.) . 


BENBRIDGE, Portrait of Elizabeth Ann Timothy (Mrs. 
John Williamson, of Savannah, Ga.). (Owned by the Metro- 
politan Museum of Art.) 

BENBRIDGE, Portrait of Mrs. Christopher Gadsden (born 
Wragg). (Owned by Miss Marie H. Heyward, Charleston,S.C.) 
BENBRIDGE, Portrait of Captain Charles Shepheard. Died 
at Savannah, Ga., 1779. (Owned by Ernest L. Parker, Esq., 
Philadelphia, Pa.) 

BENBRIDGE, Portrait of Mrs. William Somersall, born 
Sarah Hartley of Charleston, married in 1774. (Owned by 
Mrs. D. Maitland Armstrong, New York City.) 

Ropert Futon, Portrait of his wife, Harriet Inwing- 
ston Fulton. (Owned by the New York Historical Society.) . 


xii 


at page 10 


at page 11 


at page 10 


List or ILLUSTRATIONS 


VIIL Rosert Fuuton, Portrait of Mrs. Stephen Van Rensse- 


IX. 


laer III, born Cornelia Patterson. (Owned by the Metropoli- 
tan Museum of Art.) 


Rospert Futon, Portrait of a Lady. (Owned by the 


Metropolitan Museum of Art.) . 


CopueEy, attributed to, Portrait of William Ree M: ‘ller 
(In a private collection.) 
Copuey, Self-portrait. On porcelain. Said to have been 


painted in London. (Owned by Copley Amory, Esq., Wash- 


ington, D. C.) 


Copuey, Portrait of Samuel Cary. (Owned by Miss Hester 


Cunningham, East Milton, Mass.) 


CorueEy, Portrait of Joseph Barrell. (Qwned by Mrs. Wil- 


liam A. Putnam, Brooklyn, N. Y.) 

Copuey, Portrait of Mrs. John Melville, born Deborah 
Scollay, 1737-1794. She married Dr. Melville in 1762, and 
Copley is said to have painted this miniature as a wedding 
present to her. (Owned by the Worcester Art Museum.) 


Cor ey, Portrait of Mrs. Samuel Cary. (Owned by Miss 


Hester Cunningham, East Milton, Mass.) 

SavaGez, Self-portrait. On the reverse is a portrait of his 
brother-in-law, Eben Seaver. (Owned by the Worcester Art 
Museum.) . 


CHARLES WILLSON PEALE, Portratt of once Na- 
thanael Greene, 1742-1786. (Owned by the Metropolitan Mu- 
seum of Art.) 

DuNKERLEY, Portrait of a Man. Initials on back: E B. 
(Owned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.) 


DUNKERLEY, Portrait of Mrs. Mary Burroughs. En-— 


graved on back of frame: Mary Burroughs Obt. March 28th 
1838 AE 72—J. Dunkerly 1787. (Owned by Bryson Bur- 
roughs, Esq., Flushing, N. Y.) 

Henry PewunamM, Portrait of William Wagnall Stevens. 
Monogram in back: WWS. (Owned by Mrs. Horatio G. Cur- 
tis, Boston, Mass.) 

TRUMBULL, Portrait of William Loughton Smith, 1758-' 


XIV 


at page 11 


at page 18 


XII. 


XIII. 


XIV. 


List oF ILLUSTRATIONS 


1812. Representative from South Carolina to the First Con- 


gress. Painted in 1792. Oil on wood. (Owned by Herbert L. 
Pratt, Esq., New York City.) CW 7 Se he oi cole: 


TRUMBULL, Portrait of Thomas Jefferson. Oil on wood. 
Painted in 1787. (Owned by the Metropolitan Museum of 
Art.) 

TRUMBULL, Portrait of John Laurance, 1750-1810. Mem- 
ber from New York to the First Congress, and later Senator. 
(Owned by the New York Historical Society.) 


ARCHIBALD ROBERTSON, Portrait of his wife, Eliza 
Abramse Robertson. Married in 1794. (Owned e Dr. John 
E. Stillwell, New York City.) 2 


RaMaaGbe, Portrait of a Man. (Owned by Mrs. Miles White, 


Jr., Baltimore, Md.) 
RamaGkE, Portrait of Elbridge Gerry, 1744-1814. Signer of 
the Declaration of Independence; Congressman from Massa- 


chusetts, 1789-1793. (Owned by Elbridge T. Gerry, Esq. 


New York City.) 

RamaaGe, Portrait of Mrs. Elbridge Gerry. (Owned by 
Elbridge T. Gerry, Esq., New York City.) 

RamaGe, Mrs. Gulian Ludlow of New York; born Maria 
Ludlow. (Owned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.) 
Exours, Portrait of Henry Browse Treat, Collector of the 
Port of New Orleans. Painted about 1805. Signed: H. Elouis. 
(Owned by Mrs. D. J. McCarthy, Philadelphia, Pa.) 


RaMaGks, Portrait of John Pintard, 1759-1818, of New 
York. Merchant and philanthropist. Painted in 1787. (Owned 
by the New York Historical Society.) 

RaMAGE, Portrait of Mrs. John Pintard, born Elizabeth 
Brasher, 1765-1838. (Owned by the New York Historical 
Society.) 

Ramaae, Portrait of George Washington. (From the Munn 
Collection.) Probaby not from life. (Owned by the Metro- 
politan Museum of Art.) 

RaMaGeE, Portrait of an Officer. (In a private collection.) 


Xv. 


at page 19 


at page 18 


at page 19 


at page 22 


PCV. 
In Colour 


XVI. 


XVII. 


List oF ILLUSTRATIONS 


WaLTER ROBERTSON, Portrait of George Washington. 
From Robert Field’s engraving of 1795. Painted, 1794. . 
Trott, Portrait of Charles Wilkins, 1805. In the back, on 
a paper cut from a letter, is written: “‘Good-bye, Chas. Wil- 
kins.” In pencil is added: “‘Lexington, Ky. July 1824.” 
(Owned by Herbert DuPuy, Esq., Pittsburgh, Pa.) 
WaLtER ROBERTSON, Portrait of Martha Washington, 
born Martha Dandridge, 1732-1802. Married first Daniel 
Parke Custis. (Owned by Herbert L. Pratt, Esq., New York 
City.) 

RAMAGE, Portrait of Antony Rutgers, of New York. 
(Owned by Mrs. John Hill Morgan, New York City.) 
FRASER, Portrait of Mrs. Theodore Gourdin, of Charleston. 
Painted in 1826. On the reverse is an earlier portrait of 
Theodore Gourdin, probably by Fraser. (Owned by Mrs. 
John Hill Morgan, New York City.) 

Henry Pevuuanm, Portrait of Stephen Hooper, of New- 
buryport, Mass. Painted in 1773. (Owned by the Metropoli- 
tan Museum of Art.) . MSS Ee 5 : 

WatTtEeR RoBERTSON, Portrait of ines Rose Tidy. 
man, of Charleston. Born, 1773; married John Drayton in 
1794, Painted in 1793. (Qwned by Charles D. Drayton, Esq., 
Washington, D. C.) 

WaLTER RosperRtTson, Portrait of Augustus Vallette 
Van Horne, of New York, 1765-1853. (Owned by the Metro- 
politan Museum of Art.) 

WattEeR RoBeEeRTsON, Portrait of Mrs. Philip Tidy- 
man, of Charleston, S. C. Painted in 1793. (Owned by 
Charles D. Drayton, Esq., Washington, D. C.) 

WALTER RoBERTSON, Portrait of Major Jonathan Has- 
kell, 1755-1814. In the U. S. Army, 1777-1796. (Owned by 
Herbert DuPuy, Esq., Pittsburgh, Pa.) : 
WaLttEeR Ropertson, Portratt of Lawrence Reid 
Yates, died, 1796; merchant of New York. (Owned by the 
Estate of Gilbert S. Parker.) 

Rospert Fiexp, Portrait of Richard Lockerman. Signed: 


XVI 


at page 23 


at page 24 


at page 30 


XVIII. 


XIX. 


List oF ILLUSTRATIONS 


R.F. 1803. (Owned by Mrs. Miles White, Jr., Baltimore, Md.) 
RoBERT Freup, Portrait of Mrs. Richard Lockerman, 
born Frances Townley Chase, of Annapolis, Md. Married in 
1803. Signed: R.F. 1808. (Qwned by Mrs. Miles White, Jr., 
Baltimore, Md.) 

ROBERT FIELD, Portrait of Dr. James Sergeant Ewing, 
1770-1823. Son of Rev. John Ewing, Provost of the Univer- 
sity of Pennsylvania. Signed: R.F. 1798. (Owned by Herbert 
L. Pratt, Esq., New York City.) A: 
RoBERT Frevp, Portrait of George Washington. Se 
R. F. 1801. (Owned by Herbert L. Pratt, Esq., New York 
City.) 

RoBERT FIELD, Portrait of Mary Tayloe Lloyd, 1784- 
1859, of Wye House, Talbot County, Md. Married Francis 
Scott Key in 1802. Signed: R.F. 1802 (or 1812?). (Owned by 
Mrs. John Rutledge Abney, New York City.) ; 
PxEeTico.Las, Portrait of a Man. Supposed to be Robert 
Callender. Signed: P.A. Peticolas 1796. (Owned by Mrs. John 
C. Thorn, New York City.) 

Artist UNKNowN. Portrait of John Hancock, states- 
man; the first to sign the Declaration of Independence. 
Painted about 1780. (Owned by Mrs. Frederick A. Savage, 
Baltimore, Md.) 

ELKANAH TISDALE, Portrait of Anthony Bleecker (?). 
Painted about 1800. (Owned by Mrs. John Hill Morgan, 
New York City.) 

Artist UNKNOWN. Portrait of Mrs. Peter deLancey, 
born Elizabeth Colden. Painted about 1780; possibly by 
Benbridge. (Owned by Mrs. Williams Burden, New York 
City.) 

Bircu, Portrait of General Lafayette. Enamel. Inscribed on 
back: General Lafayette as at the anniversary of the Battle of 
York Town Oct 19th 1824 by W Birch from A Sheffer. (Owned 
by Herbert L. Pratt, Esq., New York City) 


Ma.uBone, Portrait of Mrs. Richard Coffin Derby, of Ssent 
Mass. (Owned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.) 


XVil 


at page 31 


at page 34 


at page 35 


XXI. 


XXII. 


In Colour _ 


XXIII. 


List oF ILLUSTRATIONS 


MALBONE, Portrait of Rebecca Gratz, of Philadelphia. Died, 
1869. (Owned by Miss Rachel Gratz Nathan, New York 
City.) 

MAaLBoONngeE, Portrait of Miss Poinsett, of Charleston, S. C. 
Painted in 1802. (Owned by R. T. Haines Halsey, Esq., New 
York City.) 

MaLBONE, Portrait of Nicholas Power. Painted probably 
in 1794. (Owned by the Providence Athenzeum.) . : 
MALBONE, Portrait of Solomon Moses. (Owned by Miss 
Rachel Gratz Nathan, New York City.) 

MauBone, Portrait of Mrs. Benjamin Foissin Trapier. 
Signed: Malbone. (Owned by Mrs. J. Madison Taylor, Phila- 
delphia, Pa.) 

M aLBonge, Portrait of Charles Harris, of Boston, at the age 
of twenty. (Owned by Herbert L. Pratt, Esq., New York 
City.) wok ah Sige ee see gee ee ae 
MauBonet, Portrait of Mrs. James Lowndes. Painted, 
1803-1804, in Charleston. (Owned by the Metropolitan Mu- 
seum of Art.) 

MausBone, Portrait of David Moses, 1776-1858. (Owned 
by Miss Rachel Gratz Nathan, New York City.) 


MausBone, Portrait of Joel R. Poinsett, of Charleston, 


1779-1851. Statesman and diplomatist. Painted in Charles- 
ton, probably 1803. (Owned by R. T. Haines Halsey, Esq., 
New York City.) 

FRASER, Portrait of Jane Winthrop, born 1792, a niece of 
the artist. Painted about 1808. (Owned by the Metropolitan 
Museum of Art.) . a. aa ou oe. a ula ae ae 
MALBONE, Portrait of a Lady with a Pink Scarf. (Owned 
by the Estate of Gilbert S. Parker.) 

MauBone, Portrait of Nicholas Fish. (Owned by William 
Beverley Rogers, Esq., New York City.) 

MALBONE, Portrait of Archibald Taylor, of Georgetown, 
5. C. Painted probably 1804. (Owned by Mrs. John Hill 
Morgan, New York City.) 

Masons, Portrait of Thomas M eans, of South Carolina, 


XVill 


at page 34 


at page 36 


at page 38 


XXYV. 


XXVI. 


List oF ILLUSTRATIONS 


born in Boston, 1767, died in S. C., 1828. (Owned by Mrs. 
David du Bose Gaillard, Washington, D. C.) 


MatBone, Portrait of a Man. (Owned by Herbert DuPuy, 
Esq., Pittsburgh, Pa.) 


MawusBone, Portrait of Mrs. Thomas Amory of Boston, 


born Elizabeth Bowen. (Owned by Miss Helen Amory Ernst, 
Washington, D. C.) 

Matusone, Portrait of the Little Scotch Girl. Supposed to 
have been painted in England. (Owned by R. T. Haines 
Halsey, Esq., New York City.) . : iy es 


Trott, Portrait of Nicholas Biddle. Financier. Went to 


Europe 1804 as Secretary to John Armstrong, U.S. Minister 
to France. Returned to America, 1807. Painted, 1807-1809. 
(Owned by Edward Biddle, Esq., Philadelphia, Pa.) — 
Trott, Portrait of Lewis Adams. Inscription on back: 
Lewis Adams Septem™ 1828 by B. Trott. (Owned by Herbert 
L. Pratt, Esq., New York City.) 

Trott, Portrait of a Man. Painted about 1822. (Owned by 
the Estate of Gilbert S. Parker.) é 


Trot, Portrait of Mrs. James Greenleaf. After a portrait 
by Stuart. (Owned by Mrs. Nicholas Luquer, Washington, 
DC. 

Trott, Portrait of Mrs. Alexander N. Macomb, born Julia 
Anna McWhorter. Painted in Newark, N. J., in 1823. (Owned 
by the New York Historical Society.) 

Trot, Portrait of Peregrine Wroth, M.D., 1786-1879, of 
Chestertown, Md. Inscription in back in sitter’s handwriting: 
Peregrine Wroth, painted by Mr. Trott, Sansom St. Philadel- 
phia, Anno Domini 1806. (Owned by Peregrine Wroth, Esq., 
Baltimore, Md.) 

Trott, Portrait of Edward Johnson Coale, 1776-1832. An 
unfinished miniature. (Owned by Mrs. Francis T. Redwood, 
Baltimore, Md.) 


XXVIII. Fraser, Portrait of Sarah Ladson, of Charleston. Later 


Mrs. Gilmor. Formerly attributed to Malbone, but evidently 


x1xX 


at page 42 


at page 43 


at page 42 


at page 43 


XXVIII. 


XXIX. 


XXX. 


XXXII. 


List or ILLUSTRATIONS 


an early work of Fraser, painted about 1802. (Owned by 
Herbert L. Pratt, Esq., New York City.) 

FraASsER, Portrait of Henry Ogden, of New York. (Owned 
by Herbert DuPuy, Esq., Pittsburgh, Pa.) 

MauBone, Portrait of Eliza Fenno, Painted in New York, 
1803. She married, 1811, Gulian Crommelin Verplanck, and 
died in Paris, 1817. (Owned by Miss Louisa Verplanck 
Richards, New York City.). aes 

FRASER, Portrait of Dr. Alexander Baron, ie 1745, e 
Aberdeen. Came in 1769 to America and practised medicine 
in Charleston, where he lived until 1819. (Owned by Herbert 
DuPuy, Esq., Pittsburgh, Pa.) 


Fraser, Portrait of Mrs. Ralph Izard, of Charleston. 


Born Alice deLancey, of New York. Painted at the age of 
eighty. (Owned by deLancey Kountze, me New York 
City.) Pie 

FRASER, Portrait of Funke Kinloch Wee uger. Cae to 
Lafayette by the City of Charleston in 1825. Colonel Huger 
rescued Lafayette from the prison at Olmutz. Signed: 
Fraser. (Owned by R. T. Haines Halsey, Esq., New York 
City.) 

FRASER, Portrait of James Gourdin, of Charleston, S. C. 
Inscribed in back: painted by Ch Fraser Charleston July 1824. 
(Owned by Herbert L. Pratt, Esq., New York City.) 
Fieup. Enlarged detail. (See also pl. XXXVII.] 

C. W. Prate. Enlarged detail. [See also pl. III.] 
MauBone. Enlarged detail. [See also pl. XXII.] 
FRASER. Enlarged detail. [See also pl. XV.] ; 
RAPHAEL PEALE, Portratt of a Man. Signed: R P 1800. 
(Owned by Herbert DuPuy, Esq., Pittsburgh, Pa.) 
Louis A. Couuas, Portrait of a Lady. Signed: Collas 
1818. Painted presumably in New Orleans. (Owned by R. T. 
Haines Halsey, Esq., New York City.) 

THOMAS Suuty, Portrait of Mrs. Edward Shoemaker, 
born Ann Caroline Giles, of Baltimore. (Owned by Sidell 
Tilghman, Esq., Madison, N. J.) 


xX 


at page 50 


at page 51 


at page 50 


at page 51 


a ee, 


Fe 
; 
Ea 
: 
4 


XXXII. 


XXXITT. 


XXXIV. 


List or ILLUSTRATIONS 


RAPHAEL PHALE, Portrait of Doyle E. Sweeney. Served 
in the War of 1812 and as Captain in the Mexican War; 
died, 1847, at Pueblo. (Owned by Herbert L. Pratt, Esq., 
New York City.). Lee Meade OM 20. 


Mary JanE Simes, Portrait of Mrs. John Christian 
Brune. (Owned by Mrs. Francis T. Redwood, Baltimore, 
Md.) 

LAWRENCE Suuty, Portrait of a Lady. Painted about 
1795-1800. (In a private collection.) 

Anna C. PErausz, Portrait of Eleanor Britton. Painted 
at the age of about eighteen. She later married William 
Musgrave of Philadelphia. Signed: Anna C. Peale 1826. 
(Owned by Mrs. John Hill Morgan, New York City.) 


Artist Unxnown, Portrait of Dolly Madison (Mrs. 


James Madison). Formerly attributed to Anna Claypoole 
Peale. (Owned by Mrs. John Hill Morgan, New York City.) 
Tuomas Suuty, Portrait of his wife, Mary Sully. 
(Owned by Ernest L. Parker, Esq., Philadelphia, Pa.) . 


SAUNDERS, Portrait of Sophia Carroll Sargent. Signed: 

G L Saunders. (Owned by Mrs. Sophia Frick Schenck, New 
York City.) 

SAUNDERS, Portrait of Thomas Bartow Sargent. Ser. 

G L Saunders. (Owned = Mrs. Sa Frick Schenck, New 
York City.) . cts ec a er ate 


JARVIS, Portrait of Miss Anderson. Signed: JARVIS. 
(Owned by Herbert DuPuy, Esq., Pittsburgh, Pa.) 
DicxkinsoOn, Portrait of Mrs. Robert Watts, born Matilda 
Ridley. Artist’s professional card in the back. (Owned by 
the Metropolitan Museum of Art.) 

DicKinsown, Portrait of Robert Dorlon, lawyer, of Cats- 
kill, N. Y. Signed: on back A Dickinson 1806. (Owned by 
Herbert DuPuy, Esq., Pittsburgh, Pa.) 

Ezra AMES, Portrait of Gilbert Stuart, 1755-1828, the 
celebrated portrait painter. Formerly attributed to Dickin- 
son. (Owned by the New York Historical Society.) . 


XxI 


at page 58 


at page 59 


at page 58 


at page 59 


XXXV. 


XXXVI. 


List oF ILLUSTRATIONS 


ARTIST UNKNOWN, Portrait of Mrs. Phebe Carr 
Huger, of Charleston. Painted about 1845. (Owned by R. T. 
Haines Halsey, Esq., New York City.) 

BaRrRatTT, Portrait of Josiah Elder, of Harrisburg, Pa. 
(Owned by Mrs. Huger Elliott, New York City.) 
MacDoveatt, Portrait of Henry Clay. Inscription in 
the back states that it was painted at New York in 1840 or 
1841. (Owned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.) 
CatTuin, Portrait of Charles Edwin Bergh I, 1802-1876. 
Signed: G. Catlin 1824. (Owned by W. Christian Bergh, 
Esq., New York City.) 

Artist UNKNowN. Portrait of a Lady of the Sully 
Family. Painted about 1860, and revealing the influence of 
the daguerreotype. (Owned by Mrs. John Hill Morgan, 
New York City.) 

Joun W. Donas, Portrait of George Catlin, the artist. 
A paper inside in an old handwriting: Painted by John W. 
Dodge, Miniature Painter, No. 42-Franklin St, M ay 21, 1835. 
Likeness of George Catlin. (Owned by the me 
Museum of Art.) 


InmMAN, Portrait of a Lady. (Owned be eer L. Pratt, 
Esq., New York City.) 

W oop, Portrait of John Greene Proud, born, 1776. Painted 
in New York, 1812. (Owned by Mrs. Francis T. Redwood, 
Baltimore, Md.) 

DUNLAP, Portrait of Mrs. Aaron Olmsted, 1758-1826, born 
Mary Langrell Bigelow. Painted probably in Hartford in 
1812. (Owned by Miss Mary O. Marshall, Charleston, S. C.) 
W oop, Portrait of a Man. Initials J D in back. (Owned by 
Herbert L. Pratt, Esq., New York City.). 


XXXVIT. Inman, Portrait of James Bogert, Jr. (Owned by Herbert 


In Colour 


L. Pratt, Esq., New York City.) 

Dickinson, Portrait of J. W. Gale (?). Artist’s profes- 
sional card in the back. (Owned by the Metropolitan 
Museum of Art.) 


Ropert Fie xp, Portrait of James Earle, of Centerville, 


Xxli 


at page 66 


at page 67 


XXXVITI. 


XLII. 


List oF ILLUSTRATIONS 


Md. Signed: R F 1802. (Owned by Mrs. Miles White, Jr., 
Baltimore, Md.) 

JaRvis, Portrait of a Man. Signed: JARVIS 1809. 
(Owned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.). 


InMAN, Portrait of a Man. (Owned by Herbert L. Pratt, 
Esq., New York City.) 

InMAN, Portrait of a Lady. (Qwned by Herbert L. Pratt, 
Esq., New York City.) 

Inman, Portrait of a Lady (below). (Owned by the Met- 
ropolitan Museum of Art.) 


Ann Haut, Portrait of the artist with her sister, Eliza 
Hall Ward, and Master Henry Hall Ward. Painted in 1828. 
(Owned by Mrs. Lewis Gouverneur Morris, New York 


City.) 


Inman, Portrait of Mrs. Alexander Hamilton, born 
Elizabeth Schuyler. Painted at the age of sixty-eight. 
Signed: Inman 1825. (Owned by Alexander Hamilton, 
Esq., New York City.) 


Cumminas, Portrait of Jane Cook Cummings, the artist’s 
wife. (Owned by Miss Lydia M. Cummings, New York 
RCM ee, tc te nt OA wk) ea Pree 


CummMinas, Portrait of Benson J. Lossing, the Ameri- 
can historian and editor. Signed: Cummings. (Owned by 
Mrs. Frank E. Johnson, Yonkers, N. Y.) 

Artist Unxnown. Portrait of a lady of the Hancock 
Family, probably by John Carlin. Painted about 1840. 
(Owned by Mrs. Frederick A. Savage, Baltimore, Md.) 


NATHANIEL ROGERS, Portrait of a Lady. (Owned 
by R. T. Haines Halsey, Esq., New York City.) 
NatHANIEL Roacers, Portrait of Mrs. Gabriel 
Manigault. Signed: N. Rogers, N. Y. (Owned by Herbert 
L. Pratt, Esq., New York City.) 

NaTHANIEL ROGERS, Portrait of Edward Armstrong, 
in British Army uniform. (Owned by Mrs. D. Maitland 
Armstrong, New York City.) rg ee By AF 


Xxlil 


at page 68 


at page 74 


at page 75 


at page 74 


at page 75 


at page 82 


XLII. 


XLIV. 


XLVII. 


List oF ILLUSTRATIONS 


Artist Unknown. Portrait of a Lady. (In a private 
collection.) 

Ezra Ames, Portrait of Jesse Hawley, 1773-1842. 
(Owned by the New York Historical Society.) 
LAMBDIN, Portrait of Polly Stuart Webb Vincent, 1807- 
1883. Inscription on back states that it was painted by 
J. R. Lambdin, New York, December, 1850. (Owned by 
Mrs. John Hill Morgan, New York City.) . , 
Witxurams, Portrait of Henry Burroughs. Signed: 
Williams 1810. On the back a note: . . . presented to Miss 
Catherine H. Greene whom I married Feb. , 1814. I was 
27 years old when this was painted. H. B. (Owned by Bryson 
Burroughs, Esq., Flushing, N. Y.) 

WixuuraMs, Portrait of Edward Coverly. (Owned by the 
Metropolitan Museum of Art.) 

Artist UnNKNowNn. Portrait of a Lady. Painted about 
1800. (Owned by Mrs. Charles Hallam Keep, New York 
City.) 2 VS DA ok Oa ne 
SARAH GOODRIDGE, Portrait of Daniel Webster. 
Painted about 1826-1828. (Owned by Herbert L. Pratt, 
Esq., New York City.) 

SARAH GooprRipGE, Portrait of General Knoz. 
After the miniature by Gilbert Stuart. (Owned by Bowdoin 
College, Brunswick, Me.) 

GILBERT Stuart, Portrait of General Knox. Friend 
and military adviser of Washington. This miniature was 
copied from the oil portrait of Knox. (Owned by Mrs. 
Andrew van Pelt, Chestnut Hill, Pa.) ihe 
SARAH GoopRiIpDG@E, Portrait of Mrs. Benjamin Joy, 
of Boston. Painted about 1823-1824. (Owned by R. T. 
Haines Halsey, Esq., New York City.) 
SARAH GooprRipGe, Portrait of Gilbert Stuart. 
Painted supposedly in 1825. (Owned by the Metropolitan 
Museum of Art.) sh tks a 
CuaRk, Portrait of the Hon. Walter Forward, statesman. 
(Owned by Herbert DuPuy, Esq., Pittsburgh, Pa.) 


XXIV 


at page 83 


at page 90 


at page 91 


at page 91 


- 
. 


gy el EAE Ee on ere ep Se Oe ee See ee a ho ea 


XLVIII. 


List oF ILLUSTRATIONS 


CuaRrK, Portrait of Mrs. Alvan Clark, the artist’s wife. 
(In a private collection.) 

Saran GoopRIDGE, Portrait of Theophilus Parsons. 
Signed on back: Painted by S. Goodridge November 1820. 
(Owned by Mrs. Percy S. Mallett, Garden City, L. I.) 
Sraiaa, Portrait of John Inman Linzee. Signed: R. M. 
Staigg, 1847. (Owned by Mrs. John T. Linzee, New York 
City.) 

Sraraa, Portrait of Mrs. John Inman Linzee. Signed: 
R. M. Staigg 1846. (Owned by Mrs. John T. Linzee, New 
York City.) . 


XXxV 


at page 90 


at page 98 


AMERICAN MINIATURES 
1730-1850 
by 


Harry B. WEHLE 


AMERICAN MINIATURES 


I. THE APPEAL OF THE MINIATURE 


Eldeace WALPOLE, who was a connoisseur of miniatures, as he was of most forms of 
art, wrote in praise of one of the greatest of miniaturists,! “If a glass could expand 
Cooper’s pictures to the size of Van Dyck’s, they would appear to have been painted 
for that proportion.” The implications of this penetrating remark were patently de- 
veloped and particularized some years later by the American miniaturist, Thomas 
Seir Cummings.’ “‘ Miniature painting,” according to Cummings, “is governed by the 
same principles as any other branch of the art, and works in miniature should possess 
the same beauty of composition, correctness of drawing, breadth of light and shade, 
brilliancy, truth of colour, and firmness of touch as works executed on a larger scale. 
... [t may be asked, what is the proper preparatory course of study for the miniature 
painter? We should unquestionably answer, the same as for any other branch of the 
art. It is in the mechanical part only that it differs.” 

The immediate success which certain great portrait painters have achieved when 
they occasionally turned to painting in miniature would seem to indicate that even the 
mechanical part of the miniature is no important deterrent to the painter who knows 
the general basis of his art. Holbein, as we shall see, was said by Van Mander to have 
“needed only to see some work in miniature to know how to do it himself,” and 
brilliant occasional miniatures are known by such masters of the oil technique as 
Goya, Fragonard, and Sir Thomas Lawrence. In the miniatures of Goya and Lawrence 
we see a diminished reflection of their work in oil, the work of Fragonard recalls the 
style of his spirited wash drawings, while a close examination of Holbein’s miniatures 
reveals again the thrilling rightness of his drawing and hatching in the crayon por- 
traits. In America, miniatures by such artists as Inman and Sully can readily be rec- 


1See Walpole’s Anecdotes of Painting in England, 1762-1771, HU, 145. 
*See William Dunlap, History of the Arts of Design in the United States, 1834 edition, II, pp. 10-14. 


1 


AMERICAN MINIATURES 


ognized as the work of painters accustomed to working in oil, so broadly is the colour 
laid on. The single beautiful miniature by Gilbert Stuart is another case brilliantly in 
point. aa 

Yet such works as these are the exception rather than the rule, and the remarks 
of Walpole and Cummings, like most illuminating observations, need some qualifying. 


The great miniaturists, especially since the coming of ivory as the substance upon 
which to work, have in general used a method of painting which contains common 
elements peculiar to this genre and quite unlike the procedure followed in oil painting. 
Something may be added to our understanding of the art of the miniaturist if we give 
a little consideration, first, to the peculiar methods of his craft, and second, to two 
attributes of miniatures which make for their popularity with collectors. 
_ As compared with the liberties allowable in painting in oil, the ivory, where its 
qualities are properly exploited, makes rather exigent demands. It requires of the 
painter a surface texture without so much as a pinhead’s area of flaw. In a head painted 
upon so tiny a scale the slightest injustice in the values, the minutest inconsistency in 
the handling mars the perfection, the least clotting of the background disturbs the 
_vibration and purity of the effect. But once the painter has laid his washes on the 
ivory, any attempt of his to correct his surface in the quest for perfection becomes 
hazardous almost to impossibility. For even though he were to wait years (or centuries) 
for the water colours to set in the ivory surface, he would find at the end that one 
vigorous pass of a moist brush or rag would suffice to wash the pigments clean away.! 
Naturally, therefore, in order to obtain reliable results, painters of miniatures with 
few exceptions have learned to build up their textures and to state their forms by the 
cautious means of stippling and hatching which becomes often so minute, painstaking, 
and dexterous as to remind us of the technical marvels of the great French engravers. 
Cummings describes as follows two of the technical methods of miniature painting, 
i.e., hatch and stipple:? “In the first named the colour is laid on in lines crossing each 
other in various directions, leaving spaces equal to the width of the line between each, 
and finally producing an evenly-lined surface. The second is similarly commenced, 


‘For an account of the technique of miniature painting, see George C. Williamson and Percy Buckman, The Art 
of the Miniature Painter, 1926. 


*See Dunlap’s History, etc., 1834 edition, II, p. 12. 
: g 


eS Oe ee ey 


sir i i RN iA A rag BES eat | 


JOHN WATSON BY HIMSELF 


Artist UNKNOWN 


Respecca CLAYPOOLE PRATT 


PLATE I 


Mrs. West sy Pratr—Portratt In OILs 


Mrs. THomas Hopxtnson py Pratt 


EuizaBetH RoTHMALER BY Tuetis—Porrrair in Ors 


Brensamin West spy Himseir 


Mrs. Jacos Morte sy Jeremian Tuetis 


PLATE II 


Tue APPEAL OF THE MINIATURE 


and when advanced to the state we have described, is finished by dots placed in the 
interstices of the lines until the whole has the appearance of having been stippled from 
the commencement.” Such elaborate stippling as that described may actually be ob- 
served with the aid of a magnifying glass in the backgrounds of miniatures by Cum- 
mings and others, though many miniaturists stippled merely by means of dots, whether 
round or squarish, made with the point of the brush.’ 

The results obtained by successfully employing processes so exacting and refined 
as these naturally invite the closest examination. To see properly an object so small 
and so finely contrived as a miniature portrait requires of us a distinct effort of the 
attention, an actual temporary arrest of the breathing. But, unless we are feeling 
jaded or distracted, we willingly undertake the effort, and the overcoming of this 
slight resistance is a process pleasant enough in itself, provided we find the game is 
worth the candle. The area is tiny, but for that very reason it must give us abundant 
return if we are to feel satisfied. The forms must posses clarity; the textures must be 
pure and perfect, i.e., the miniature must offer much value in little space. It must 
possess the quality called “preciousness.” 

Such preciousness, such elaborate and perfect manipulation within a small area 
of materials pleasing in themselves—the intrinsic loveliness of the glowing ivory 
surface seen through a fine texture of colour, delicate and unsullied by time—furnishes 
us, at its best, a species of delight peculiar to painting “‘in little.” It is a delight in 
its modest way not unlike the breathing of mountain air, a quality of sensation as- 
sociated in our minds with clarity and transparency which, until the developed ex- 
ploitation of the miniature on ivory, had not been supplied by paintings since the 
decay, early in the Sixteenth Century, of the great tradition of the Van Eycks. 

Closely connected with the pleasure which the collector takes in the preciousness 
of his miniatures is his delight in a second quality which painting “in little’”’ possesses. 
And this quality we may call the ‘“‘marvellousness” of the miniature, an attribute 
which is inherent in its very littleness. Enthusiasm for such marvellousness as this is, 
perhaps, not a purely esthetic emotion, but is, nevertheless, based upon a more or less 


1The attempt is to convey here some understanding of the technique of the miniaturist during the period covered 
by the present volume. Many miniature painters of the present day intend their works to be seen at a distance of sev- 
eral feet as against the earlier six to eighteen inches, and modern methods often resemble those employed in painting 
with aquarelle on paper. 


3° 


AMERICAN MINIATURES 


sound appreciation of craftsmanship. It depends upon sympathy and hence upon 
experience (whether direct or vicarious) with the technical difficulties involved in the 
creation of such a diminutive work of art, and perhaps for that reason we hear more 
about such enthusiasm in earlier times when people lived on more intimate terms than 
now with the processes of the craftsman. For the satisfaction of such an eminently 
human taste as this must have been carved such astonishing objects as the Flemish 
rosary beads of boxwood illustrating scenes from the Passion,’ which have their 
admirers to-day also, for most of us have whittled at wood. Yet the Crucifixion in 
this series with its twenty-odd figures struggling through their drama within the 
space of an inch and a half’s diameter would doubtless seem vulgar enough if magnified 
twenty times. In the same way, petty tinklings to which no sensible person would 
ordinarily give ear, provide us a childlike delight when they issue from a musical watch 
fob, and we are all familiar with the classic story of the Shield of Achilles, the marvels 
of which were sung by Homer, to the delight of all listeners, for the better part of half 
an hour. On the shield’s metallic surface, the god Hepheestus fashioned with cunning 
skill the heavens with their constellations, and the earth with its cities beleaguered and 
torn with strife, or rejoicing in peaceful festivities. And around about the cities he 
showed the fertile farm lands and vineyards with labourers at their work | amg youths 
and maidens shouting and dancing. 
Thus, surely man delights in the marvellousness of little things cunningly and in- — 
geniously wrought and, this being so, surely the miniature portrait at its best and most 
precious might well be expected to give pleasure to many—as indeed it does. 


1Examples are to be found in the Morgan Wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. 


q 


WasHINGTON—1777—ByY C. W. PEALE ANDREW SuMMERS BY C. W. PEALE 
Racuase, Brewer Peace aNp DaucuTeR ELEANOR BY C. W. PEALE 
RocuamBeau BY C. W. PEALE Mrs. Micuae, Taney sy C. W. Peate Wruiiiam BrncHam sy C. W. PEALE 


PLATE III 


or) 


II. THE ORIGIN OF MINIATURES 


M INIATURES, in the sense of small portraits complete in themselves, are in spirit very 
different from the book miniatures which flourished in the East as well as the West 
practically throughout the Middle Ages. The miniatures in books were intended to 
illuminate the text and to decorate the page, and their smallness was conditioned 
only by the size of the page itself. Here portraits occur only occasionally, and when they 
do they usually represent with marvellous skill and honesty the great personage him- 
self for whom the book was made. The intention in such cases was evidently not to 
commemorate the personage portrayed so much as to do him homage or to celebrate 
some event, whether secular or devotional, with which the courtly illuminator wished 
to connect him. 

The detached portrait miniature, with which this book has to do, is painted for a 
different purpose. It is designed simply as a memento, its purpose being essentially 
that of an intimate personal document, not to be kept by the subject of the likeness, 
but intended to serve the owner as an aid in visualizing the admired or beloved person 
portrayed. In its emotional appeal to the original owner it partakes thus a little both 
of the companion and the talisman. The Eighteenth Century practice of setting a 
lock of the sitter’s hair in the back of the frame served to reinforce the association, and 
in some cases a conventional mourning motif or a word of farewell cut from a letter 
written by the sitter was introduced to add pathos. During its heyday, the miniature 
was always small, for it was designed to be carried on the person or set into some such 
personal article as a snufibox or a memorandum case, or at the very least to be kept 
in one’s own desk, probably secreted in the smallest and most private of its drawers. 

That this form of art, celebrating the individual as it does, should have arisen with 
the Renaissance was no mere accident. It was but one minor expression of the fresh 
interest in human personality which everyone in those days of eager curiosity began to 
feel. And it is also surely not without significance that we, if we wish to go back of the 
Renaissance in search of the closest spiritual analogue to our miniature portraits, must 

5 


AMERICAN MINIATURES 


join the Renaissance scholar in rummaging among the artistic treasures of the Classical 
world. It is in the portrait gems once set into the finger rings of Greeks and Romans 
that we shall discover the identical species of human appeal: a delight in the faithful 
delineation of the human countenance on a scale small enough to wear on the person 
as a memento. 
At the Boston Museum of Fine Arts is a rare and beautiful gem portrait of this 

\sort dating as early as the Fifth Century s, c. In Hellenistic times, and especially 

during the Augustan age, portraits engraved on gems became more and more common. 

Augustus himself wore a portrait of his hero Alexander the Great. The followers of 

Epicurus wore his portrait on their signets, and cultured Romans wore beautiful heads 

lof Homer, Socrates, and Demosthenes. The decadent Commodus wore in his ring a 

portrait of his mistress Marcia as an Amazon, while Tom, Dick, and Harry, or their 

Roman equivalents, wore portraits of friends, relatives, or sweethearts.1 

During the thousand years which follow the fall of Rome the private portrait on 
a tiny scale practically ceases to appear. The intellectual world is preoccupied with al- 
legories and abstractions, the individual is presumably lost in the hive. Subjects for the 
artist usually concerned episodes from the Christian legend, or, when occasionally 
some gay and dainty object was decorated with a secular theme, it illustrated nothing 
more personal than the occupations of the months or the homiletic tale of Virgil in his 
basket, or Campaspe and Aristotle, or the Siege of the Castle of Love. 

It is not until the resurrection of Classical ideas in Renaissance Italy that the small 
private portrait recurs. At first it is not in the medium of paint but in bronze that it 
‘appears. When Pisanello, inspired probably by Roman models, began in the forties 
of the Fifteenth Century to make his unsurpassed portrait medals, it was before the 
invention of engraving, and medals were the only way of making speedily a number of 
replicas of a portrait which could be sent about as presents. Medals answered a human 
need and the vogue for them quickly spread. 

Some fifty years after the great time of Pisanello the city of Lyons celebrated the 
state entry of Anne of Brittany by presenting her with one hundred copies of a medal 
by native artists portraying herself and Charles VIII, while in Germany, especially 


1See Gisela M. A. Richter, Catalogue of Engraved Gems, Metropolitan Museum, 1920, pp. XXII, 90. 
*See G. F. Hill, Medals of the Renaissance, Oxford, 1920. 


6 


ArcnipALp Roperrson BY HIMsELr Mrs. Wituram E. Huwines sy James PEALe 
RempraNpt PEALE BY JAMES PrAte 


Grorcr WasHineton By C. W. PEALE 


Hannay Summers By C. W. PEALE 


PLATE IV 


[THE ABOVE REPRODUCTIONS ARE LARGER THAN THE ORIGINALS AS 11:10] 


ae hig 


THoe ORIGIN OF MINIATURES 


during the second quarter of the Sixteenth Century, numerous small circular portraits 
of delightful precision and unflinching characterization were cast in bronze or carved 
in boxwood or lithographic stone. These reveal scarcely a trace of Italian influence. 
They are a peculiarly Germanic expression of the Renaissance spirit. 

In England no native medallist of note appeared, and it was in England, perhaps | 
not by a mere coincidence, that the art arose of making portrait medallions by painting | | 
them on vellum or on cardboard. The exact year when the first portrait miniature was | | 
thus “‘limned’ we do not know, but it would almost appear that it was the wave of ) 
Henry VIII’s royal sceptre which commanded its appearance. During the first gen- | 

eration of its existence the miniature was invariably the size of a small medal and , 
circular in form,” the figure being designed with medallion-like style and clarity against 
a background of clear ultramarine blue. 

All the English miniatures of that generation and well past the middle of the 
century used to be attributed to Hans Holbein, for the fact that he died as early as 
1543 came to light only in comparatively recent years. At the other end of his activity 
as a miniaturist, it appears unlikely that he painted “‘in little” before his second so- | 
journ in England, commencing in 1532; and the authorities on his art now recognize 
a scant dozen little portraits as by him. One portrait of Henry VIII painted in 1535 or 
earlier, before he had his head “‘polled,”’ is close to Holbein’s style but scarcely up to 
the Holbein standard, and 1536 is the first year that we have evidence of Holbein’s 
being in Henry’s service. 

But the much-married king ¥ was a a great Le FiSah of the arts, and Holbein was not 
the only artist he imported. Among those on his payroll at this time were two talented | 
children of the Flemish illuminator and tapestry designer, Gerard Horenbout (also | 
spelled Hornebout, Hornebolt, etc.). One was his daughter Susanna, who had painted | | 
at the age of eighteen a miniature picture of Christ as Saviour which Albrecht Diirer in 
1521 marvelled at and bought direct from the youthful artist. The other was his son 


1At least as late as the middle of the Seventeenth Century, the verb to limn was used strictly to indicate painting 
in miniature. Pepys at this time speaks of paintings in little, but Horace Walpole, less than a century later, invariably 
uses the word miniature. Limn is derived from ilwmine, while minium, the red lead commonly used in early manuscript 
initials, gave its name to miniatures. 

*Holbein’s portrait of Thomas Wriothesley in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art is oval but gives 
clear evidence of having been cut down by some vandal. 


u 


AMERICAN MINIATURES 


Lucas. Both had been trained in the great Flemish tradition of manuscript illumina- 
tion. The services of such artist families as the Horenbouts and Benings' knew no 
national boundary lines, and it may well be that Lucas Horenbout, before he was 
| called to England, saw a certain book belonging to Francis I of France which would 
‘furnish the prototype of the miniature portrait of the court of Henry VIII. This 
‘manuscript book of Commentaries on the Gallic War was made in 1519 and contained 
among many things seven circular medallion-like portraits about one and one-half 
‘inches in diameter with blue backgrounds. Drawings for these portraits of the seven 
Preux de Marignan who had championed Francis’s cause in battle have been identified 
through drawings at Chantilly as by “‘the presumed Jean Clouet.’”2 
Whether or not Lucas Horenbout actually saw these miniatures of Jean Clouet 
we shall probably never know definitely, nor shall we know whether it was he to whom 
the simple but important idea first came of cutting such a portrait out of its book, or 
of being so revolutionary even as deliberately to paint a small portrait upon a small 
circle of parchment or cardboard having no connection with any book whatsoever. 
Lucas Horenbout was naturalized in England in 1534, and the royal accounts 
mention payments to him (of a salary higher than was ever paid to Holbein) until 1544, 
! in which year he died. Not long after Lucas Horenbout came to England, Holbein 
appears to have become acquainted with him (if Van Mander’s statement made in 1604 
is correct) and to have learned from him the technique of painting in water colours on 
vellum. “With Lucas,” writes Van Mander “he kept up mutual acquaintance and in- 
tercourse, and learned from him the art of miniature painting, which since then he 
pursued to such an extent that in a short time he as far excelled Luke in drawing, ar- 
rangement, understanding, and execution as the sun surpasses the moon in brightness.” 
Nicholas Hilliard, the great miniature painter of Queen Elizabeth’s time, writes about 
the year 1600 in his T’reatise Concerning the Art of Limning: “Yet had the King in 
wages for limning divers others, but Holbean’s manner I have ever imitated and howld 
it for the best.” 
Thus we find in Henry VIII’s England the art of the detached miniature portrait 


‘Alexander Bening (also spelled Binnink, etc.) was one of the greatest illuminators, and is given credit for many 
marvellous works including most of the pages in the Grimani Breviary. His daughter Lievine was employed in England 
after 1545 by Henry VIII, Mary, and Elizabeth. 


*See L, Dimier, French Painting in the XVI Century, 1904, p. 31. 
8 


Tur Or1iGiIN oF MINIATURES 


well established. In France we have already noted the little circular portraits painted 
supposedly by Jean Clouet some years earlier than the English examples but not yet 
liberated from the setting of the book. In the reign of Henri II, however, we find the 
portrait miniature flourishing in the delicate art of the school of Jean’s son Francois 
Clouet. 

Concerning the miniature in Italy, we have a statement made by Vasari in the 
middle of the Sixteenth Century which seems to indicate that Giulio Clovio had begun 
to paint miniatures in the newer sense of the word in addition to the famous portraits 
which he painted in books. “I know,” he writes, “some private persons who have 
little cases containing beautiful portraits by his hand, of sovereigns, of their friends, 


or of ladies whom they have loved.” 


III. THE USE OF IVORY 


[i development of the art of the miniature, once it was established, is not for us 
to trace here. There is, however, one pivotal event in miniature history which may 
be touched upon appropriately, and that is the introduction of ivory as the material 
upon which to paint. ! 44 

As we have remarked, miniatures by Holbein, and by his contemporaries who fol- 
lowed the same practice, are painted either directly upon pieces of cardboard cut out of 
playing cards or on fine vellum pasted over such cardboard. The background is painted 
with ultramarine blue made from lapis lazuli and diluted with white. The portrait it- 
self is painted as a rule in gouache, i.e., opaque or body colour, with transparent flesh, 
though Professor Ganz! describes Holbein’s miniature of Anne of Cleves painted in 
1539 as being in “finest aquarelle technique” (i. e., transparent) on paper in an ivory 
box with a rose carved on the top. 

For two full centuries following the time of Holbein the characteristic technique 
of painting miniatures remained virtually unchanged. Parchment, sometimes paper, 
is the material and gouache is the medium, with aquarelle for the flesh. Miniatures 
painted in oil on copper, silver, slate, or wood are not uncommon, especially in the 
Seventeenth Century, but as a general thing they seem heavy and dark when com- 
pared with miniatures in water colour, and are generally felt to be out of the happy 
spirit of miniature painting. 

In the early Eighteenth Century, miniatures painted in enamel became the rage, 
and it was then also, or a little before, that painting on ivory began to be tried. Ber- 
nard Lens, who lived until 1755, often painted on ivory, using transparent flesh tints, 
but his draperies and backgrounds were painted opaque, in the old manner which, 
among French miniaturists, was continued until the end of the Eighteenth Century. 

The first painter to understand fully and to exploit the qualities of ivory for 
miniatures was, according to most experts, the Englishman, Richard Cosway. Early in 

‘Klassiker der Kunst, Holbein, 1911. 


10 


Mrs. Jonn Witson By JAMES PEALE Paut Breck By JAMES PEALE 
ANNA CLAYPOOLB PEALE BY JAMES PBALE 
Maria C. Peate AND DAUGHTER BY JAMES PEALE 


Maria C. PEALE BY JAMES PEALE 


PLATE V 


Dr. Wittram E. Huuias spy James PEALE 


Mrs. Morpecat SHEFTALL BY JAMES PEALE 
Mrs. Jostan Pinckney sy Jamps PEALE 
JAMES PEALE BY HIMSELF 


A. A. P. B. pe Pont py James PEALE 


PLATE VI 


WA GLVId 


ADCIUANAG AC TIVSHAWOG WVITTIAA ‘SUP ADNGIUANAG AM NGGSAV) AAHAOLSIMH,) “SUL 
NOLIOT LYAMOY AI NOLTAY NOLSONIAY]T LaTaUvyy 
ADGIUaNAG AG GUVAHAAHS SHIUVHD NIVidvd) ADGIUANAG Ad AHLOWLY, NNY HLAAVZr1y 


IWA GALVId 


NOVIN INAGOY AM LIVELYOT AONVYT SOLTOY AM []]T AAVIGSSNAY NVA NAHATLS ‘SUT 


Tus Use or Ivory 


his career he was employed by jewellers to paint fancy miniatures for snuffboxes. As 
early as 1761 he was exhibiting miniatures at the Free Society, and he soon became 
the most popular miniaturist in England. Perhaps it was his training in painting 
miniatures to be used as adjuncts to gold and jewelled boxes that called his attention 
to a certain airy translucency and silveriness which could be obtained by letting the 
smooth surface of the ivory glow through the thinnest possible covering of transparent 
colour. The soft colour of the unbleached and undisguised ivory could serve as high 
lights on the flesh and was allowed to give a lightness to clouds behind or a sheen to 
satin draperies. The lesson of using ivory and of permitting it to speak for itself was 
quickly learned by the other miniaturists of England, and since it is not until about this 
time that the history of miniature painting begins in America, it is with miniatures on 
ivory almost invariably that we shall have to deal in our study of this intimate art “in 
little” as found in the newer country. BS ea Caps 


‘U1 


IV. THE EARLIEST AMERICAN WORKS 


COLONISTS PORTRAYED IN ENGLAND—JOHN WATSON—THEUS 


American MintatureEs” as the title of such a book as this should require no 
apologies or explanation. It includes, as a matter of course, miniatures painted in 
America by anyone, native or foreign born, whose work was worth remembering and 
who remained on the scene long enough to contribute something to the esthetic cul- 
ture of America. As Walpole pointed out, to write a history of English painting without 
dwelling on the art of Holbein and Zucchero, VanDyck, Cornelis Janssens, Lely, and 
Kneller would be utterly meaningless. Less emphatically, a history of American 
miniature painting without consideration of the talented European artists who worked 
here, would give only a partial picture of the subject, although it can be stated, without 
the danger of falling into chauvinism, that most good American miniatures were 
painted by native-born Americans. 

In the history of oil painting in America we find the work of foreign artists con- 
fined principally to two periods: first, the early time before the middleof the Eighteenth 
Century when the Colonies were still too raw to have produced artists of their own; 
and, second, the period of the 1790’s and a little later, when the new Republic was ex- 
hibiting tempting signs of wealth and stability, just at a time when many an artist 
was glad enough to get out of France alive, and England was profoundly upset by the 
Napoleonic adventure. 

In the field of the miniature we know less of such foreign invasion during the 
earlier period. The history of painting in oils begins in America with the middle of the 
Seventeenth Century, but few, if any, works in miniature of this early date are known, 
perhaps because there were none painted, perhaps because they have been lost or de- 
stroyed, or perhaps merely because, being small, miniatures are able to hide themselves 
out of sight in museum cases. The comparatively moderate money value of miniatures, 
moreover, makes them more apt than larger portraits to remain in the private families 
where they properly belong. Such Seventeenth Century portraits “in little” as we know 

12 


Tue EarRvuiest AMERICAN WORKS 


showing American personages were painted by Englishmen in England, if one may 
judge anything of the style of miniatures from illustrations in photogravure.! Thus, 
the miniature of John Winthrop, from which the portraits of him in oils derive, appears 
to be in the style of Nicholas Hilliard, while that of Isaac Mazyck must have been 
painted before he left England in 1668, its urbane style apparently resembling that of 
Laurence Crosse. The miniature of George Calvert, first Lord Baltimore, which is in 
the Morgan Collection, is signed by Peter Oliver. 

The earliest miniature portraits actually painted in America may well have been 
the little drawings by John Watson. Watson was a Scotsman, who came to East Jersey 
in 1715 and settled in the then very promising town of Perth Amboy. Here, according 
to Dunlap, he remained for the rest of his many days and continued a bachelor, amass- 
ing considerable wealth by his art and by the shrewd handling of his moneys. The only 
works by him of which we are sure are little portraits on vellum or paper made either 
with a brush dipped in India ink (see Plate I) or else with “plumbago,” i. e., with a 
graphite pencil, after the manner of Forster and Johann Faber in England. The por- 
trait of Sir William Keith, the provincial governor of Pennsylvania, now owned by 
the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, is in India ink, while his Lady’s is nicely 
drawn in pencil.” . 

A delightful early miniature, perhaps the earliest American example known which 
is on ivory, is the portrait of Mrs. Jacob Motte of Charleston, S. C. Originally set as a 
bracelet (Plate II), it is a quaint little work, neatly executed, gay in colour and in the 
rendition of the blue silk dress, and marvellous in the small-scale rendition of lace. 
The supposed sitter, Elizabeth Martin, married Jacob Motte in 1725, and the costume 
shown in the miniature indicates an indefinite date between 1740 and 1760. As to the 
age of the sitter at the time the miniature was painted, it would be risky to dogmatize. 
Possibly the family tradition has slipped a generation, as it so often does, and we have 
here a youthful portrait of the wife of Jacob Motte, Jr. This gentleman, who was born 
in 1729, had his portrait painted in 1750 by Jeremiah Theiis, and the style of Mrs. 
Motte’s miniature immediately suggests that it also was painted by Theiis. 


1See C. K. Bolton, Portraits of the Founders, 3 vols., Boston, 1919 and 1926. 


2A confused inscription behind the frame of Lady Keith’s portrait seems to indicate that it is merely a copy made 
in 1856. 


13 


AMERICAN MINIATURES 


Most of our information about this artist was brought out in an article by the 
Reverend Robert Wilson some years ago.! We do not know in what year Theiis emi- 
grated from Switzerland to South Carolina, but in 1740 he advertised himself as having 
removed his establishment into Market Square near Mr. John Laurens, the saddler, 
where he was prepared to paint portraits, landscapes of all sizes, and crests or coats 
of arms for coaches and chaises. Until 1773, the year before his death, he had practically 
a monopoly of the portrait painting of Charleston. 

“It is not known,” writes Mr. Wilson, “whether Thetis ever painted miniatures, 
and one of his ‘landskips,’ still existing, does not evince any special ability, but his 
portraits came to be in great vogue.” An entirely characteristic portrait in oils by him 
is that dated 1757, of Elizabeth Rothmaler, afterward Mrs. Paul Trapier (Plate II). 
Its colour is, perhaps, its greatest charm, but there is much that is attractive too in the 
alert figure with its sharply modelled head. The length from eyes to chin, which we may 
observe also in his miniature, is exaggerated, the mouth is a full Cupid’s bow, and the 
nose gives a curious impression of cartilages tightly confined by the skin. The recipe 
for painting the silken dress is an excellent one. In both portraits, the little and the big, 
we note again the minute attention to lace, the scarf thrown over the farther shoulder, 
the puckers in the silk beneath the arm, and the use of the forked fold in the sleeve. 
More than seventy oil portraits by Jeremiah Thetis have already been discovered in 
Charleston, and doubtless a number of his miniatures would turn up if a search were 
to be made. 


See Year Book, City of Charleston, S. C., 1899, pp. 137-147. 


14 


V. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY IN PHILADELPHIA AND 
FARTHER SOUTH 


HESSELIUS—PRATT—WEST—C.W.PEALE—JAMES PEALE— 
FULTON—BENBRIDGE 


Tue middle of the Eighteenth Century found Philadelphia the metropolis of the 
American Colonies and a centre of culture which only Boston could rival. We might 
naturally expect to find members of the leading families in such a community desirous 
of having their likenesses taken in miniature to serve as mementoes or keepsakes, and 
a number of miniatures are indeed known to us which were painted in or about Phila- 
delphia at this time. | 

Several of these delightful heirlooms, fresh and dainty in colour, very small in 
scale, and executed with a minute stipple, appear to be by a single hand. A delightful 
example of such work is to be seen in the portrait of Mrs. Hopkinson, the wife of Judge 
Thomas Hopkinson! and mother of Francis Hopkinson (Plate II). In her enjoyable, 
lavender-scented Heirlooms in Miniatures, Anne Hollingsworth Wharton discusses 
interestingly and at some length the possible authorship of such early Philadelphia 
miniatures as this of Mrs. Hopkinson and one of Mary McCall Plumsted, also the 
somewhat earlier portrait of Mrs. Henry Pratt, born Rebecca Claypoole (Plate I). 

The possible attributions offered to us for these early works are, in fact, not a few 
if we consider the different painters then working in and about Philadelphia; and while 
it is somewhat hazardous to draw parallels between miniature portraits and larger 
works in oil, one is tempted to speculate upon any light which such a comparison might 
throw upon the authorship of these sprightly early works. First, then, there were 
John Wollaston and John Hesselius, both of whom are known to have worked along 
the Eastern Shore of Maryland, Hesselius being active, at the least, from 1750 to 1770, 
while Wollaston was painting in Maryland and in Philadelphia, Richmond, and Char- 
leston from about 1755 to 1767. The “almond-eyed” mannerism of these two artists 
makes entirely possible the painting by one or the other of them of Mary Plumsted’s 


1The companion miniature of Judge Hopkinson is in less perfect condition. 


15 


AMERICAN MINIATURES 


miniature, but it quite precludes either from having painted the little portrait of Mrs, 
Thomas Hopkinson or that of Rebecca Pratt. As to who may have been the author of 
this lovely little miniature of Rebecca Pratt we have as yet no clue whatever. It 
appears to have been painted between 1750 and 1760 at the latest (Mrs. Pratt was 
born in 1711), and is executed in the opaque French manner. 

There still remains for us, then, the agreeable task of speculating upon who could 
have been the painter of the delicate and appealing little portrait of Mrs. Thomas 
Hopkinson. Their “‘almond-eyed” mannerism having eliminated Hesselius and Wollas- 
ton as possibilities, there remain to us four Philadelphia artists whose claims should 
be considered. First, we may mention James Claypoole, if only promptly to discard 
the thought of him, for the moment at least, because we do not definitely know any 
paintings by him, and are therefore in complete darkness as to what his style may have 
been like. Second, there is Benjamin West to consider. But West left America forever 
at the age of not quite twenty-two, and our miniature of Mrs. Hopkinson betrays 
nothing of the pronouncedly brown flesh-colour and primitive modelling which we 
find in his miniature self-portrait painted at the age of eighteen (Plate IL), and, more- 
over, nothing of the gaucherie which we find in his characteristic early portraits of Mr. 
and Mrs. William Henry, now owned by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. 
A third painter who claims our consideration is Charles Willson Peale, whose home was 
in Maryland but who travelled about extensively painting portraits in oil and also in 
miniature. But in Peale’s case again we are unable to judge with immediate satisfaction 
whether or not we have found the painter of the miniature in question. For, although 
we know plenty of Peale’s work after he returned in 1769 from his studies in London, 
we have few clues to his style two years earlier when he had not yet had the advantage 
of devoted study under competent instructors. Our fourth and final claimant remains 
as a convenient climax. He is Matthew Pratt the pupil of James Claypoole, best known 
to us for his picture at the Metropolitan Museum of Art entitled the American School. 
This qua.nt picture is a group portrait of several young artists at work in West’s 
London studio. Other well-known works by Pratt are his greenish and somehow classic 
portraits of Benjamin West and his wife Elizabeth, both now owned by the Pennsy]l- 
vania Academy. If we were to examine in detail and side by side our little miniature of 
Mrs. Hopkinson and this portrait by Pratt of Elizabeth West (Plate II), we should 

16 


EIGHTEENTH CENTURY, PHILADELPHIA AND SOUTH 


find illustrated in both the pleasing characteristic practice of draping a scarf over the 
head and across the shoulder. In both, also, we should find the identical small crescent 
mouth and the same simple clarity in the drawing of eyes coupled with a somewhat 
puffy fulness of the lower lid, distinctive traits which can be found repeated yet again 
in the less familiar portrait of Elizabeth Colden de Lancey painted by Matthew Pratt 
and illustrated in the catalogue of the 1917 Exhibition of Early American Paintings at 
the Brooklyn Museum. ~— 

We owe what information we have concerning Pratt largely to the invaluable 
though not infallible Dunlap. Matthew Pratt was born in Philadelphia in 1734, the son 
of the goldsmith Henry Pratt, who was a member of Dr. Franklin’s famous Junto. 
At the age of fifteen he was bound out as an apprentice to his uncle James Claypoole, 
from whom he learned “‘all the different branches of the painting business,”’ which 
surely included portrait and sign painting and which we may well suppose included 
painting in miniature also. Many have testified that the signs which he painted from 
time to time during his career were extraordinarily good ones. Neagle assures us, “‘ They 
were the best signs I ever saw,” especially the one with a gamecock which designated 
a beer shop on Spruce Street, one with Neptune, and one which showed the Constitu- 
tional Convention, including many diminutive portraits said to have been good like- 
nesses of the delegates. 

Pratt was twenty-five years old before he settled down to the profession of por- 
trait painting. In 1764, aged thirty, he went to England, where he divided four years 
between the London studio of his friend Benjamin West and Bristol, where he followed 
his profession with fair success. Returning at last to Philadelphia, he reéstablished 
himself as a portrait and sign painter. He visited New York at times, notably in 1772, 
when he executed the full-length portrait of Cadwallader Colden for the Chamber of 
Commerce. He also painted the portrait of Elizabeth Colden de Lancey, already men- 
tioned, and another of Cadwallader Colden with his grandson Warren de Lancey at his 
knee. At the National Museum, Washington, is a portrait in oils of Mrs. Hopkinson, 
resting Leonardesque hands in her lap, which is apparently by Pratt and seems to bear 
some relationship to our miniature of the same lady. But though Matthew Pratt con- 
tinued to live in Philadelphia until the age of seventy, we know surprisingly few of his 


works. 
17 


AMERICAN MINIATURES 


With Charles Willson Peale it was quite another matter. Portraiture was his field 
so long as he continued painting, and the number of his works, as well as the variety 
of his style during his most enthusiastic years, is remarkable. Born in 1741, Peale was 
three years younger than Benjamin West. His father, who died when Charles was a 
boy, had conducted a school where the youngster probably received his first lessons 
in the art by which he later became famous. A printed announcement of the school 
told the good parents of Chestertown and the surrounding Maryland countryside 
that “Young Gentlemen may be instructed in Fencing and Drawing by very good 
Masters.” But young Peale’s school days had to be terminated early, and he was ap- 
prenticed to a saddler. Upon his release at the age of twenty, his predilection for draw- 
ing came again to the surface, and, though he had now set up as a saddler and married 
him a wife, he began painting portraits, first of himself and then of his young wife and 
his brothers and sisters. On the strength of these no doubt crude attempts, he soon 
obtained a commission for two portraits at five pounds each. He sought instruction 
from a painter in Philadelphia, named Steel, but Mr. Steel was far too eccentric to be 
of use. Later John Hesselius allowed the young enthusiast to watch him execute 
two portraits and then gave him a portrait with the left half painted and told him 
to paint the right. Peale paid for this valuable lesson with a saddle of his own 
making. 

In 1765, when Peale was twenty-four, his services, in some mysterious way, were 
required in far-off Newburyport, where he painted five portraits. On his way back, he 
stopped in Boston and was awed by the old portraits and copies in the Smibert shop. 
Copley received him civilly and lent him for study a painting he had made by candle- 
light—doubtless the delightful portrait of young Henry Pelham, recently lent to the 
Boston Museum. It was at this time, according to his journals, that Peale painted his 
first miniature, a portrait of himself. 

Before returning to Annapolis, Peale painted several portraits in Virginia under 
the patronage of a wealthy planter, but what the quality of his work may have been we 
do not really know. Some of his father’s influential friends sent him to London to pur- 
sue his studies in West’s studio, and within a year the Free Society of Artists had ac- 
cepted from him for exhibition two three-quarter-size portraits and three miniatures. 
It appears to have been chiefly by painting miniatures that he supported himself in 

18 


\W. S. Mitter AtrrRipuTeD TO COPLEY JoserH BARRELL BY COPLEY 


Coptey By HIMse.r Epwarp Savacn By HIMseLr Derporan ScoutuaAYy MELyILLE 
BY COPLEY 
SamurL Cary BY COPLEY Mrs. SamuEL Cary BY CopLey 


PLATE Ix 


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TIOGNOUT, XM HLING NOLHDAO'T WVITITAY 


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THOMAS JEFFERSON BY TRUMBULL 


xI 


PLATE 


Euiza ApramMse Roprertson py ARCHIBALD ROBERTSON 


PLATE XII 


EIGHTEENTH CENTURY, PHILADELPHIA AND SouTH 


London, though he also had commissions for portraits and “conversation pieces” in 
oils. 

Upon his return to Maryland in 1769, after a little above two years abroad, Peale, 
now twenty-eight years old, entered at once upon the production of his most delightful 
works, both in oils and in miniature. His portraits have at this time a peculiar delicacy 
of characterization and subtlety of colour, though some of the pigments have faded. 
He made many professional journeys during these years into Virginia and Pennsy]- 
vania, finally settling in Philadelphia early in 1776. 

Miniatures by Charles Willson Peale are almost invariably painted on very small 
oval slices of ivory, such as he may have seen Copley using in Boston, and such as some 
of the Englishmen still used in the late 1760’s, when Peale was in London. His works 
“in little” usually exhibit much charm and often much vivacity of colour, the model- 
ling being strong but often insensitively simplified. Technically, his style, which at 
first consisted of a very fine squarish verticle stipple, became gradually bolder and 
coarser, though not offensively so. The miniature of Hon. William Bingham, painted in 
1770 (Plate III), is one of these earlier miniatures in the fine manner. The portraits of 
Andrew Summers and his wife (Plates III, IV, and XXX) exhibit the broader stipple. 

The life of the soldier, which he volunteered for at the close of 1776, did not en- 
tirely smother in Peale the life of the artist. Even during the active years as Captain of 
Volunteers he is known to have taken his equipment with him and to have painted 
miniatures of the officers. Especially the winter at Valley Forge, where he seems to 
have been connected with General Greene’s headquarters, gave him an opportunity to 
paint, and his journals indicate that he made no less than forty miniatures, receiving 
prices for them of from fifty-six to one hundred and twenty dollars each. One of these 
miniatures is that of the Commander-in-Chief himself (Plate III), showing him young 
and handsome, as he appeared to the artist in 1777 , immediately before the Battle of 
Germantown, if Rembrandt Peale’s statement is correct. Several later miniatures of 
Washington, by Peale, reveal the head of the familiar soldier type which we find in the 
famous portrait of about 1778, the full-length Washington resting his weight somewhat 
jauntily against a cannon. The original portrait, which was commissioned by the 
Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania, is thought to be the one now in the 
Pennsylvania Academy. A fine example of this type of Washington miniature is that 

19 


AMERICAN MINIATURES 


lent to the Metropolitan Museum (Plate IV). Another fine Revolutionary portrait by 
Peale is the portrait of the Comte de Rochambeau, painted in 1780. It is set as a brace- 
let on a black velvet ribbon, being a very small miniature but a moderate and serious 
piece of characterization. (Plate ITI.) 

Knowing as we do that Charles Willson Peale lived to the ripe old age of eighty- 
five, for he did not die until 1827, it is easy to forget the fact that his active life as an 
artist was virtually ended by 1795. In that year he painted Washington from life for the 
last time and perhaps with more success than ever before. But beside him sat his son 
Rembrandt, aged seventeen, also painting a portrait of the President, a portrait which 
impresses some spectators to-day as being the more convincing likeness of the 
two. 

The elder Peale was now anxious to get his sons Rembrandt and Raphael launched 
as painters, and allowed his own energies to be drawn away from portraiture into proj- 
ects for an academy of painting and a museum of natural history and historic portraits. 
After 1793 the reconstruction of femurs and metatarsals for his mammoth and the 
collection and amazingly modern installation of his stuffed birds, took him from his 
easel almost entirely except for such portraits of worthies as were painted to form 
a row around the gallery above the cases of birds, and very occasional portrait com- 
missions or likenesses which he made of members of his immediate family and kins- 
folk. Miniatures he had already ceased to paint, having, sometime before 1790, raised 
his prices to a point which he reckoned to be an effective deterrent to clients. This he 
did to make an opening for his younger brother James, whom, after his return to Eng- 
land, he had persuaded to give up his trade of chaise-making, teaching him to paint 
instead. In 1786 the older Peale writes that he has given up painting miniatures and 
hopes James may be “‘going into a hurry of business.” 

Throughout the Revolution, James Peale had served with honour as an officer of 
one or another of the Maryland regiments. When he, at last, turned to his peace-time 
profession, he exhibited in his oil paintings a quaint style at times fairly accomplished 
yet, on the whole, decidedly uneven. It is as a miniaturist that he is best known and 
in this field he became a prolific worker. Here, the quality of his work is surprisingly 


1Much of our information about the Peales has been generously-supplied by Horace W. Sellers, Esq., who owns 
the Peale papers and letters. 


20 


EIGHTEENTH CENTURY, PHILADELPHIA AND SoutH 


uniform and fine. The colour is delicate and often distinguished, and the breleranere 
are luminous, but his drawing shows a tendency to sameness, especially in the faces of 
his men. The majority of his miniatures are signed with the initials I. P. and dated, and 
those which the writer has chanced to see fall usually within the period 1787-1800, 

though one portrait of Washington was painted in 1782 and there are miniatures also 
dated as late as 1812. 

A delightfully intimate document dated 1787 is an ornamental oval frame intended 
to hang from a ribbon in the usual fashion. On one side is James Peale’s version of his 
own face, a kindly matter-of-fact one, and on the other is a small portrait of his wife, 
holding in her arms a baby, whom we judge by the date to be little Maria, her third 
child (Plates V and VI). A reminder of the fact that James Peale left Philadelphia at 
times in search of sitters is found in the portraits of Josiah and Mrs. Pinckney (Plate 
VI), whom he doubtless painted on one of his visits to Charleston, S. C. 

_ An Eighteenth Century Philadelphia miniature painter, whose name most of us 
associate rather with New York and Albany, is Robert Fulton, who later in life suc- 
cessfully used the steam engine for propelling boats. He came from Lancaster County 
to Philadelphia in his seventeenth year and turned his hand to drawing landscapes, 
maps, or whatever he could get people to pay him for. Soon he was painting miniatures, 
and his little portraits of Mr. and Mrs. John W. Kittera at the Historical Society of 
Pennsylvania are attractive though inaccurately drawn, and modelled, if one looks 
too closely, with clumsy long brush strokes, somewhat like the thatch on a roof. His 
miniature of Clementina Ross, which must have been painted in 1786, shows already a 
decided advance. It is somewhat flat, but is dainty in colour and spirit and so close in 
style to James Peale’s work at the time that we must suppose James to have been his 
teacher. ; 

At the end of the year 1786 or early in the year following, Fulton, now come of 
age, went to England, where, like all the Americans, he availed himself of the advice 
(and probably of the supervision) of Benjamin West. For some years, with fair success, 
he painted portraits and historical pictures inspired by the romantic style of Angelica 
Kauffmann. This was before his attention became directed, about 1794, to engineering 
problems. But even his experiments with canal-diggers, submarines, torpedoes, and 
steamboats, which took him also for seven years to France, failed to deflect entirely his 

21 


AMERICAN MINIATURES 


interest from painting, and from time to time we find him making portraits of his 
friends the Barlows and others. 

Aged forty-one, he returned at last, toward the end of 1806, to America, and on 
August 17th of the following year, his steamboat made her successful maiden voyage 
up the Hudson. He continued to paint such occasional portraits as those of John 
Livingston and Mrs. Walter Livingston. In 1808 he married Harriet Livingston, 
daughter of the lady just mentioned and second cousin of his friend and patron 
Chancellor Livingston. A portrait of his wife, by Robert Fulton (Plate VII), belonged 
until recently to Mrs. Robert Fulton Blight, who was married to a grandson of Fulton. 
It is entirely different from the miniatures Fulton had painted some twenty-two years 
before in Philadelphia, but very much like the fancy historical pictures of Lady Jane 
Grey, and Mary, Queen of Scots, and Louis XVI in Prison, all of which we know from 
the engravings of 1793. Another miniature showing the same hard and artificial draw- 
ing of the hair and eyes, and the same jewelled girdle is the portrait of Cornelia, wife 
of Stephen Van Rensselaer III (Plate VIII), who was a neighbour of the Livingstons 
up the Hudson. A third miniature (Plate VITT) is in such an exaggeratedly fancy 
style, reminiscent, perhaps, more of Lawrence than of Angelica Kauffmann, that one 
hesitates to call it an actual portrait. 

Still another painter of the time, who worked in Philadelphia and farther South, 
was Henry Benbridge, whose name has been exhumed and is now being gradually 
resuscitated in the South, thanks to discoveries published a few years ago by Charles 
Henry Hart.! Benbridge, who was a Philadelphian in easy circumstances, is thought 
by Hart to have had his first lessons in painting from John Wollaston, to whom is 
attributed a portrait of Benbridge’s stepfather, Henry Gordon. At the age of twenty- 
one his family sent Benbridge to study in Italy with Mengs and Battoni, who had 
taught Benjamin West. Young Benbridge spent some time in London also, sending a 
portrait of Benjamin Franklin, among others, to an exhibition of the Royal Academy. 
After five years away, he returned, in 1770, to Philadelphia with a style of painting 
of very uneven merit, as we can see in his portrait of the Gordon family, reproduced 
by Hart. After three years at home, a tendency to asthma led him to move to Charles- 
ton. Dr. John Morgan, in a letter dated November 24, 1773, writes: “In a visit I 


See Art in America, June, 1918. Also W. Roberts, ibid., Feb. 1918. 
22 


A Man sy RamMaGcr 


Mrs. Guitan Luptow spy RAmaAGr 
Henry Browse Treat py Exours 


ELBRIDGE Gerry By RAMAGE Mrs. Etpripce Gerry py RAMAGE 


PLATE XIII 


Mrs. Jonn Prntarp py RAMAGE 


JoHn PinTARD BY RAMAGE 
WASHINGTON By WaLTER RoBERTSON—FROM FIELD’s ENGRAVING 
WASHINGTON BY RAMAGE 


AN Orricer By RAMAGE 


PLATE XIv 


EIGHTEENTH CENTURY, PHILADELPHIA AND SOUTH 


lately made to Charles Town, South Carolina, I saw Mr. Benbridge, whois settled very 
advantageously there, and prosecutes his Profession with Reputation and success.”! 
The sight of some of his works in Norfolk in 1801 is said by Dunlap to have inspired 
young Thomas Sully to try painting in oils, and Benbridge gave him some instruction 
in the methods of his craft. 

Thus, by the age of thirty Benbridge had successfully set up as a painter in the 
hospitable Southern city. That he was a serious student may be judged by the marked 
improvement which we see in his portraits painted during the next ten to fifteen years. 
Small wonder that owners of portraits by him in the South have, in so many cases, 
confidently ascribed them to Copley, for the painting of gauzy scarves and satin folds 
is only a little less masterly than Copley’s, the hands of his sitters are rendered with 
strength and character, and the use of light and shade in modelling the heads is strong 
—almost as strong as with Copley, though the flesh is more thinly painted and the 
shadows warmly brown instead of cold. The heads are often nobly conceived and 
beautifully modelled with fine expression of the bony structure and a tendency to 
breadth and fullness in the upper eyelid. All the qualities mentioned, except for the 
hands, may be observed again in a considerable number of admirable small oval 
miniatures found mostly in Charleston, which may safely be said to be by Benbridge. 
One of these is the little portrait of Elizabeth Anne Timothy (Plate VII), in which the 
artist gives us, on his ivory less than one inch and a half high, the perfect sense of a 
handsome young woman of rich personality and high breeding. 


1See Copley-Pelham Letters, p. 208. 


23 


VI. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY IN NEW ENGLAND 


COPLEY—PELHAM—_DUNKERLEY—SAVAGE—_TRUMBULL 


Ix New Encuanp was Boston, and in Boston was Copley, and Copley is a name of 
such mysterious charm and potency that not only are most Boston miniatures, even 
up to 1790, stoutly claimed for him, but many miniatures also in Charleston and 
New York. In this connection it should be borne in mind that Copley left America in 
June of 1774 and never returned. He was a conservative and deeply serious young 
man who had not forgotten his family’s difficulties in keeping its several heads above 
water in the hard days before he had made his way as a portrait painter. He had not 
forgotten how his widowed mother had supported herself and him by carrying on her 
husband’s tobacco shop, and how later on her three additional years of married life 
with Peter Pelham had still failed to release her from the confinement of shopkeeping. 

Thus, before the long-planned break in 1774 which took him on the Grand Tour and 
then permanently to London, Copley had taken only one journey away from Boston. 
This event, which he describes in detail in his letters, took him and his young wife 
during six months of 1771 to New York, a city then woefully lacking in portrait painters 
of her own. His letters tell us the number of portraits he painted in the strange city, 
and their sizes, and no miniatures are included in the list. His journey was extended to 
take in Philadelphia also, but there his stop was very brief and he did not paint 
at all. 

In fact, the number of miniatures which Copley painted appears not to have been 
great, if we leave out of count his small portraits in oils, which run in size from three 
to six inches high. His miniatures on ivory are very small indeed and very appealing. 
They are made with a fine stipple and, like his oils, are distinguished in colour, and 
strong in construction and modelling. Even his charming ladies are always full of 
character, sometimes decidedly firm, in fact, for Copley was a true son of New England 
and in full sympathy with that “stern and rockbound coast.” Among the finest of 
his miniature works that we know are his self-portrait (Plate [X) and the portrait of 

24 


Marrua WASHINGTON BY WALTER ROBERTSON 
Antony RurcGers BY RAMAGE 


CHARLES WiLKInsS BY TROTT 


Mrs. Turopore GourpIN BY FRASER SrepHen Hooper py Henry PELtaam 


PLATE XV 


THe EIGHTEENTH CENTURY IN NEW ENGLAND 


Deborah Scollay (Plate TX), both ovals only an inch and one eighth high, and his 
lovely portraits, only a little larger, of Samuel Cary and his wife (Plate IX). His self- 
portrait, which is vivacious in colour, appears to take this quality as well as its de- 
sign from the portrait he made of himself in pastels, now owned by Mr. Harcourt 
Amory. A letter dated October 29, 1769, from Captain John Small, testifies to a similar 
process when he writes Mr. Copley politely, ‘‘The miniature you took from my Crayon 
Picture has been very much admired and approved of here by the best judges.” A 
receipt for one Guinea! received for painting “‘a picture in miniature of Miss Thank- 
full Hubbert” shows that Copley was painting miniatures as early as 1758, whereas a 
second self-portrait in miniature, belonging to Mr. Copley Amory, is said to have been 
painted after Copley went to England. 

Little has been known of the early instruction which Copley received in his art. 
Smibert, who had been Boston’s chief painter for twenty years, died in 1751, when - 
John Copley was barely fourteen, and the lad’s stepfather Pelham, who had been a fair 
portrait painter and engraver of mezzotints, died later in the same year. Copley’s 
abilities as evidenced in his work a year after these events were still far from promising. 
He may have had some instruction later on from Blackburn, whose style some of Cop- 
ley’s early works resemble, but it seems on the whole more likely that he learned princi- 
pally by mere study and imitation of pictures by Blackburn and whatever other works 
of art he could find in Boston. Thus his letters from Europe to his beloved young half- 
brother, Henry Pelham, describe the paintings he sees in the Continental galleries in 
terms of the works in Boston they both evidently know by heart—Smibert’s copy of 
this Van Dyck or that Poussin, or the engraving after Rubens’ Marie de Médicis series, 
which both know so well that it is unnecessary for Copley even to mention at whose 
house they have pored over them together. Later on another great American artist, 
Malbone, was to teach himself to draw in much the same fashion. 

Henry Pelham was twelve years younger than Copley, and Copley treated him 
with a peculiarly tender affection—an affection more paternal than brotherly and con- 
sequently leading to much advice and admonition. Of course, sensitive young Henry 
must be a painter too, like his adored big brother, and how yearningly and constantly 
in the early days Copley must have been at his elbow, instilling into him knowledge 


See Copley-Pelham Letters. a 
25 


AMERICAN MINIATURES 


and courage, one may judge from the tone of the explicit and carefully planned letters 
from Copley later on, discussing the things a professional portrait painter could learn 
from the Great Masters in the European galleries. 

There is plenty of evidence in the Copley-Pelham correspondence that Pelham 
painted some portraits in oil, and one suspects that they resemble Copley’s work just 
enough to be lost to-day among paintings by the older man. The miniatures we know 
by him, however, are surprisingly unlike the work of Copley, having a strong and dis- 
tinct personality of their own. But there are not many of them, at least not from his 
American period, for he had no more than established himself as a painter when the 
confusion of the impending revolt became so great that patrons would no longer sit 
for their likenesses, or, having sat, refused to pay the bill. When Pelham was twenty- 
four, he painted a miniature of Stephen Hooper (Plate XV), and a letter from the artist 
to his patron, a merchant of Newburyport, runs, “‘Agreeable to your directions, I have 
done your portrait in Miniature and have had it sett in Gold.” The note is dated Boston, 
September 9, 1773. . 

A year and a half later, Copley having departed for Europe, Peter was in such a 
state of nerves and apprehension that a rest cure was recommended. Every person of 
sense was forced to admit that a serious political explosion had become inevitable, and 
young Pelham saw that, not only was his career threatened by it and his Tory family’s 
economic stability, but also that his chances now of marrying his “‘very amiable Miss 
Sally”? Bromfield were ruined. He made a visit to Philadelphia where his spirits were 
somewhat revived. Here his friend Mrs. Charles Startin gave him an order for a minia- 
ture portrait of Jonathan Clarke, father-in-law of Copley, and famous as the consignee 
of the epoch-making shipload of tea. The miniature was executed in May, 1775, and 
like the portrait of Stephen Hooper is a rugged piece of painting and characterization 
with little thought for the mere sensuous qualities. A third American work in miniature 
by Pelham is the portrait of William Wagnall Stevens (Plate X). 

At the time of the general Tory evacuation of Boston early in 1776, Henry Pel- 
ham took refuge in Halifax, and on May 12th of that year, along with eleven hundred 
other New England refugees, he embarked for England. For a time he continued his 
profession of painter, exhibiting at the Royal Academy in 1778 a painting, the Finding 
of Moses, and two miniatures. In 1779 he sent a case with four miniatures, two being 

26 


THe EIGHTEENTH CENTURY IN New ENGLAND 


in water colours and two in enamels. He later moved to Ireland where, for a few years 
longer, he continued to follow his original profession. 

A delightful miniaturist who worked in Boston and whose works are apt to be 
confused with those of Copley is Joseph Dunkerley. The memory of Dunkerley was 
for a long time practically lost except for the notices which he had inserted in the 
Boston Independent Chronicle for 1784 and 1785, where he advertised himself as a 
painter of miniatures and a teacher of drawing. An exquisite little work by Dunkerley 
is the portrait of Mary Burroughs (Plate X), which fortunately bears on the back of 
the gold frame an old engraved inscription giving the sitter’s name and the artist’s and 
the year 1787 as the date of painting. The characterization of the sitter is delicate but 
not without reality. The colour tends toward blue and white! with masses of dark 
hair, while the expression of form is far more dependent upon line than is the case 
with Copley. Other miniatures which may be given to Dunkerley on the basis of 
style are the portrait of a man with initials E. B. belonging to the Metropolitan Mu- 
seum of Art (Plate X) and the well-known and admirable little portrait of Mrs. 
Paul Revere—probably also those of Charles Bulfinch and his wife. Doubtless many 
other miniatures will in time be recognized as the work of this comparatively mysteri- 
ous personality, who came from nowhere and disappeared nowhither, and of whose 
existence thus far we have proof only from 1784 to 1787. 

Two other painters of New England origin whose work as miniaturists deserves at 
least a brief mention are Savage and Trumbull. Edward Savage was born and grew 
up in Princeton, Massachusetts, and is best known for his unprepossessing portraits of 
Washington. We first hear of him when, in 1789, he was given a commission by Har- 
vard College to go to Philadelphia and paint the President’s portrait, and he later 
made replicas of this besides painting and engraving, with assistance, the famous 
picture of the Washington Family. He probably learned to engrave while on a three- 
years’ visit to London. In 1794 he returned to America and in Boston married Sarah 
Seaver. His delectably quaint miniature of her, owned by the Worcester Museum, was 
doubtless painted at about this time and also his self-portrait (Plate [X) and the por- 
trait “in little” of his brother-in-law Eben Seaver. 

John Trumbull of Connecticut, whose father Jonathan was governor of that state 


1The miniature is probably somewhat faded. 


27 


AMERICAN MINIATURES 


from 1789 to 1809, cut a greater figure in the world of art than Savage. In addition to 
some mediocre work, he painted some splendid portraits, especially those of Alexander 
Hamilton. But the great work of Trumbull’s life, which he himself took with immense 
solemnity, was the painting of his scenes from (then) recent American history. The 
original canvases of these were 20 x 30 inches, and for many of the heads studies were 
made from life, these being small oval portraits in oils on wood panels from three to 
four inches high. These are probably the finest and most spirited work that Trumbull 
did, and it is a temptation to overlook the medium in which they are painted and in- 
clude them among American miniatures. 

For his Declaration of Independence alone Colonel Trumbull painted from life on 
such little panels thirty-six of his characters. John Adams he painted in London early 
in 1787 and Thomas Jefferson he caught in Paris in the autumn of the same year 
(Plate XT). For his Surrender of Cornwallis, his Surrender of Burgoyne, and his General 
Washington Resigning his Commission (all, like the Declaration of Independence, later 
vulgarized on a grand scale for the Rotunda of the Capitol), he painted many more such 
small portraits during the next few years. Still others, such as the delightful ones por- 
traying the ladies of his family, he painted apparently as works of art complete in 
themselves. PDE GO 7 gue gee 


28 


ah eee oe Ate ee ee 


0 


VII. FOREIGN ARTISTS AT THE TURN OF THE CENTURY 


RAMAGE—A.ROBERTSON—~—W.ROBERTSON—FIELD—BIRC H— 
ELOUIS 


Severat European miniature painters, mostly from Great Britain and Ireland, came 
to the young republic toward the end of the Eighteenth Century. These, although they 
did not in most cases make the United States their permanent home, left a decided 
impression behind them through the excellence of their art. 

The first of this group of visiting artists to appear was the Irishman John Ramage, 
who set himself up as a goldsmith and miniature painter in Boston at least as early 
as 1775. When the Revolution broke out, he joined His Majesty’s loyal forces which 
were quartered on the Bostonians, and was withdrawn along with the rest to Halifax 
in 1776 at the time of the Evacuation. A year later his troops were ordered to New 
York to hold that city against the Rebels, but when an evacuation was again ordered, 
Ramage remained behind and resumed his profession of painting in miniature. He 
succeeded in building up a fashionable, indeed an important, clientéle including mili- 
tary heroes and members of the new federal government, which was then established in 
New York. Among his sitters were John Pintard and his wife in 1787 (Plate XIV), 
President and Mrs. Washington in 1793, and Mr. and Mrs. Elbridge Gerry of Massa- 
chusetts (Plate XIII). 

Ramage’s miniatures are always small, rich in colour, and painted with a long 
stroke so fine that the finished effect is as brilliant and almost as smooth as enamels 
of the best days. They are, as a rule, framed in chased gold frames of his own making 
and more beautiful than those used by any other miniaturist in America. 

In 1794 Ramage left New York for Halifax, being involved in debt, according to 
the gossips, owing to fast living and the extravagance of his second wife.! (He had de- 
serted his first.) Dunlap, looking back at the Eighteenth Century with interested 
curiosity, thus describes the details of Ramage’s dandified costume: “‘A scarlet coat 


1A sheriff’s sale of Ramage’s household and professional possessions was advertised April 16, 1794. 
29 


AMERICAN MINIATURES 


with mother-of-pearl buttons, a white silk waistcoat embroidered with coloured flowers, 
black satin breeches with paste knee buckles, white silk stockings, large silver buckles 


in his shoes, a small cocked hat covering the upper portion of his well-powdered locks 
and leaving the curls at the ears displayed, a gold-headed cane and a gold snufibox.” 
His appreciation of elegant apparel is reflected in’ his miniatures where his ladies are 
fashionably clothed and bien coiffées, while his gentlemen wear the smartest of wigs, 
the most exquisite waistcoats imaginable, and ruffles and jabots fresh from the deftest 


and most devoted of laundresses. i 


Another foreigner who painted some very good miniatures in America and made 
his home here permanently was Archibald Robertson. He came from Aberdeen in 1791, 
at the age of twenty-six, and settled in New York. Soon after his arrival he painted 
on a small slab of marble a portrait of Washington which is now at the New York 
Historical Society. This and his miniatures on ivory of Washington and his Lady ap- 
pear to be poor likenesses, showing jaws altogether too prognathous. But his two blue- 
eyed self-portraits are very good to look at (Plate IV), and the comparatively large 
_ portrait of his young wife, Eliza Abramse (Plate XII), whom he married in 1794, is a 
bonnie portrait, with its blue velvet dress and blue-black hair, yet technically it is 
fairly brusque. A portrait in the same style of an unidentified American general, which 
belongs to Mr. Alyn Williams, is signed with the monogram A. R. with a P (for pinzit) 
underneath. 

Robertson’s brother Andrew remained behind and became one of the foremost 
miniature painters in London, but his brother Alexander soon joined Archibald in 
New York, where they established together an art school called the Columbian Acad- 
emy of Painting. Alexander later set up independently as a teacher, and his teaching 
was praised by Dunlap in 1834. | 

An Irishman whose surname happened also to be Robertson came to America 
in 1793 on the same ship which brought Gilbert Stuart back from Ireland. Walter 
Robertson, for that was his name, had known Stuart some years before in London, 
and now, arrived in America, is said by Dunlap to have made pleasing miniature 
copies of many of Stuart’s portraits. : 

In 1794 Robertson went to Philadelphia and painted a miniature of Washington 
in his Continental uniform. Whether Washington actually sat to Walter Robertson, 

30 


Hester Rosrk Tirpyman spy Watrer Rosertson Mrs. Puitre TipyMan BY WattrrR RoBEertson 
Auaustus V. Van Horne By WALTER ROBERTSON Masor Haske_t By WALTER ROBERTSON 


PLATE XVI 


Lawrence Rem Yarrs py W. Ropertson 


Frances Towntey CuHase By Freup 


PLATE 


XVII 


Dr. James SerGEANT Ewine sy Fieip 


RicHARD LocKERMAN BY FIELD 


way 


FOREIGN ARTISTS AT THE TURN OF THE CENTURY 


we do not know. Certainly Washington makes no mention of such an event in his 
Diary, and it was just such minor engagements which the great man was accustomed 
to record. The miniature was engraved in stipple by Robert Field, with a very fancy 
embellishment of eagle, flags, stars, and liberty cap added by one J. J. Barralet. (The 
engraving minus the embellishment is shown on Plate XIV.) Mae od 

Robertson’s original Washington miniature belongs now to a direct descendant 
of Martha Custis, later Martha Washington. Every beholder will have his individua! 
opinion of this little portrait as a likeness, for we are confused by the many and 
divergent statements which Washington’s portraitists have made about him. But as 
a work of art appealing to the senses it is a miniature which must win admiration from 
most of those who see it, for in it the precious and marvellous qualities of the miniature 
on ivory are realized about as fully as may be. Field, who having engraved it must 
have known it very intimately, called this miniature “as good a likeness and as fine a 
piece of painting as I ever saw.” When Robertson made up his mind to go to India, 
which was probably after a stay of only two, three, or four years in America, he offered 
to sell his Washington miniature to Field at the enormous price (as it must have seemed 
then) of one thousand dollars, and Field is reported! to have said the miniature might 
well be worth it, though the price was more than he personally could afford. Dunlap, 
on the other hand, considered the miniature a complete failure as a likeness. But for all 
that, Robertson’s style fascinated Dunlap. In one place in his Hvstory he calls it 
“nique, very clear and beautiful, but not natural,” and again, intelligently enough, 
one would say, he describes it as “very singular and altogether artificial, all ages and 
complexions were the same hue—and yet there was a charm in his colouring that 
pleased in despite of taste.” As to Trott, himself an exceedingly skilful painter of 
miniatures, Dunlap tells us that Walter Robertson’s miniatures were his despair, al- 
most his obsession, and that he could not be dissuaded from the notion that their 
excellence depended upon some precious chemical secret.? 

What, then, has become of the works of Walter Robertson which aroused such a 
disturbed admiration among his professional contemporaries? F. W. Bayley, in his 
1918 edition of Dunlap, reproduces a miniature ascribed to Robertson of Michael 


1See under Field in D. M. Stauffer, American, Engravers, eto 
*See p. 107. 
31 


AMERICAN MINIATURES 


Nolen which is said to be signed or documented, but the present ownership of this 
work is unknown. As for Robertson’s numerous copies after Stuart’s portraits, of 
which Dunlap wrote, none thus far has come to light. But, if the miniature of Martha 
Washington which was engraved for Longacre’s National Portrait Gallery has dis- 
appeared, a second example is fortunately known (Plate XV), differing in drawing from 
the first, but exquisite in colour and quality and exceptionally convincing as a likeness, 
It was attributed by Charles Henry Hart, in his catalogue of the Pratt Collection, 
to Henri Elouis, but may now be definitely identified as by Robertson on the basis 
of the established Washington miniature. Others of Robertson’s works, long attributed 
to Malbone or to Field, exhibit the same distinguished colour and sparkling sophisti- 
cated accomplishment as the Washington portraits, coupled at times, however, with an 
unconvincing characterization of the sitters. But this was a matter for the sitter and his 
contemporaries to worry about. For posterity, of which we constitute our humble part, 
the sensuous beauty of the work may be of equal importance. Typical of Robertson’s 
workmanship are the elegant artificiality of starched frills and powdered hair, the fine 
cross-hatching of translucent backgrounds, and the astonishingly skilful modelling of 
the heads by means of very long fine brush lines following the facial contours and usu- 
ally blue in the depressions, notably the eye sockets. 

Dunlap tells us that Robertson made his headquarters in Philadelphia. Other 
cities which he visited we may guess at from his sitters. The Metropolitan Museum 
owns a faded but sensitive miniature undoubtedly by Robertson of one of the Calvert 
ladies of Maryland, formerly supposed to be of Ariana, who died young and un- 
married, but who probably died too early for Robertson to have painted her. The fine 
miniature of Lawrence Reid Yates and those of Colonel and Mrs, Armstrong, Augustus 
Vallette van Horne (Plate XVI),and Alexander Macomb! would seem to point toa stay 
in New York, as might also a portrait of Major Jonathan Haskell (Plate XVI). That 
Robertson visited Charleston is indicated by the miniatures of Mrs. Philip Tidyman 
(Plate XVI) and her daughter Hester Rose (Plate XVI), who married John Drayton in 
1794, This portrait, showing Hester Rose Tidyman at the age of twenty, is perhaps 
the most charming of Walter Robertson’s works. In it, everything—bright sky, 
starched frills, translucent flesh, glowing pearls and powdered coiffure of marvellous 


See Bowen’s Centennial, facing p. 51, where the miniature is attributed to Ramage. 
= nail 


FoREIGN ARTISTS AT THE TURN OF THE CENTURY 


elaboration—seems to be daintily contrived to play up a lovely pair of brown 
eyes. 

Robert Field was probably the best known and the solidest of the foreign minia- 
turists working in America at this time. He came from England, arriving about a year 
later than Walter Robertson, fully armed and equipped for making his way as a 
miniature painter and engraver. Shortly after his arrival, he made his engraving, al- 
ready mentioned, after Walter Robertson’s Washington miniature. 

Field seems to have set up his studio for the first few years in Philadelphia where 
he probably painted his miniature of Dr. James Sergeant Ewing, Philadelphia physician 
and pharmacist (Plate XVII), which is dated 1798, and also the miniature of Nicholas 
Waln, dated a year later. In 1801 he painted a number of copies in miniature after one 
of Gilbert Stuart’s portraits of Washington (Plate XVIII). During 1802 and 1803, per- 
haps longer, he was busily painting in Baltimore, and many splendid examples of his 
work are still to be seen there, owned by descendants of the sitters, An excellent 
pair of Field’s Baltimore portraits “in little” are his young Richard Lockerman and 
Lockerman’s bride Frances Townley Chase of Annapolis (Plate X VII). The miniatures 
are dated 1803, the year the Lockermans were married, and signed as usual, with the 
initials R. F. Mrs. Lockerman’s portrait is firmly drawn but exceedingly delicate in 
colour, the ivory being left practically white while her dress is of white muslin., An- 
other exquisite miniature by Field, painted at this time, is the portrait of Mary Tayloe 
Lloyd of Talbot County, Maryland, who married Francis Scott Key (Plate XVIII). In 
this little painting we see again a dainty white muslin dress setting off golden hair, blue 
eyes, and a fair skin. Behind are blue sky with clouds and a rose-pink curtain looped 
back in rich billows. 

Despite the delicacy of some of his feminine portraits Field’s colour scheme may 
be said as a rule to tend to browns. His backgrounds are put in with a short, brusque 
slanting stroke, and the coats of his men are apt to be painted in solid body-colour. 
His faces, however, which are finely constructed and often very characterful, as in the 
portrait of James Earle (Plates XX XVII and XXX), can be seen with a magnifying 
glass to be painted with fine wavering lines which remind, surprisingly enough, of the 
handwriting of a feeble old man. 

Sometime in 1805 Field moved to Boston, where he continued to follow his dual 

33 


AMERICAN MINIATURES 


profession of engraver and miniaturist. In 1808 he was persuaded by Sir John Went- 
worth to move to Halifax. 

William Birch, who came from England the same year as Field, had made a 
considerable name in his own country, where Sir Joshua Reynolds employed him to 
make enamel miniatures after some of his portraits. He set up his furnace in Philadel- 
phia and there remained for the rest of his days. He is known for his skilful enamel 
portraits of people of varying importance, especially Lafayette (Plate XIX) and Wash- 
ington, portraits of whom have always found a ready sale. 

Still another Englishman who came to America to stay was Edward Miles. 
In England he had been painter to Queen Charlotte and was later on court painter at 
St. Petersburg. He arrived in Philadelphia in 1807, when he was fifty-four years old, 
and died there in 1828. But though he was a first-class painter of miniatures, and 
moreover drew delightful small portraits in pastels, Miles was better known in Phila- 
delphia as a teacher. He is said to have painted miniatures only occasionally of some 
close friend or member of his family, and most of these little works now belong to a 
descendant who owns also a portrait in oils of Miles by James R. Lambdin, his best- 
known pupil. 

An accomplished French miniaturist who also visited the United States at the 
turn of the century was Henri Elouis. Trained under Restout in Paris, he had won a 
silver medal in 1783 from the Royal Academy in London for his drawing of the human 
figure. He remained in London several years and exhibited miniatures at the Royal 
Academy. By 1791 he had come to America and was painting in Maryland. C. H. Hart 
tells us that Elouis was at one time drawing master to Miss Nellie Custis, but neither 
of the portraits of her mother Martha Washington which Hart attributes to Elouis can 
now be claimed for him, the one in the Pratt collection being by Walter Robertson, 
as has been pointed out, and the circular example now owned in Philadelphia being 
doubtless of French workmanship but not in the style of Elouis. There are known at 
least two signed miniatures by this artist, and they are entirely consistent one with 
another, being lively in colour, with rosy flesh, well drawn and rather brilliant in gen- 

eral effect, and painted with a comparatively short and broad stroke of the brush. One 
of these represents Henry Browse Treat (Plate XIII) and the other William Waln. 

Elouis accompanied Baron von Humboldt as draughtsman on his scientific ex- 

34 


: 
; 
: 


IMAX ALVWId 


aTaIy Ad GAOTT AOTAVY, AUVI a1aIy AM NOLONIBSVAA ZONOUr) 


A Man sy P. A. Periconas ANTHONY BLEECKER BY ELKANAH TISDALE 


LAFAYETTE BY Wii11AM Bircu 


Jonn Hancock—axsoutr 1780—Artist UNKNOWN Mrs. Peter peELANcEY—apout 1780---Artist UNKNOWN 


PLATH XIX 


Mrs. Richarp C. Dersy py MaAtrone Miss Porserr py MALsonr 
Repsecca Gratz BY MaLpone Nicnouas Power sy M 


ALEBONE—ACTUAL HEIGHT 22 INCHES 


PLATE XX 


CHARLES Harris py MALBoNE 


Sotomon Mosnzs spy MA.LBone 


Mrs. B. F. Trapmmr py MAtponp—AcTUAL Heicutr 3} Incues 


PLATE XXI 


ForEIGN ARTISTS AT THE TURN OP THE CENTURY 


pedition to Mexico and South America. Humboldt returned from these travels in 1804, 
but we do not yet know whether Elouis resumed his miniature painting for the three 
remaining years of his stay in America.! In 1807 Elouis returned to France. 

Thus we have attempted to follow the fortunes and to appreciate the respective 
styles of a number of foreigners who came to the newly born United States hoping to 
make their livelihoods by painting miniature portraits of the inhabitants. By resorting 
to the practice of moving from city to city, these talented and accomplished artists 
appear on the whole to have found all the sitters they required, and Field is probably 
the only one of the lot who deliberately left the country with the view of bettering his 
prospects. But the delicate art of portrait painting in little had now reached its full 
fruition in America, and if our best native artists could watch with equanimity the 
fortunes of these several skilled foreign competitors, it was for the most respectable of 
reasons. They were able to paint even better miniatures than the foreigners. 


1Treat’s costume appears to date his portrait about 1805. 


35 


VIII. THE RIPE MOMENT. 


MALBONE—_TROTT—_FRASER 


Everyone knows that Malbone painted the finest miniatures in the history of the 
art in America. His name, for many of us who have paid no particular attention to this 
minor subject, constitutes about all we know of American miniaturists. Those who come 
from the South will know also the name of Fraser, who followed closely after Malbone 
but who soon developed an interesting and authentic style of his own. A third miniature 
painter at this time, Benjamin Trott, deserves more attention than he has received, for 
his miniatures at their best have a pleasing clarity together with effective simplicity 
of drawing and a direct and interesting statement about the sitter’s personality. 

There are, of course, all sorts of ways of looking at the personality of a sitter, and 
through him at the world in general. Copley, a man of cool observation who expressly 
recognized the Bostonians’ demand for portraits which were likenesses, nevertheless re- 
veals in his art an attitude toward the world. If we were allowed a seeming flight of 
fancy we should observe that Copley’s portraits taken as a whole appear to say to us, 
“Yes, pretty clothes are something brave and so is a comely body, but a lively intelli- 
gence and firm and godly character are what make people worthy to be leaders in the 
community or to be the mothers of leaders.’’ Charles Willson Peale, to choose at 
random another painter, seems to say “There are many well-favoured women and 
good men in the world, but handsomeness is not so important as goodness, and even 
the good are but poor struggling mortals.” In praise of Benjamin Trott, a contributor 
to the Port-Folio in 1813 wrote, “Nothing is more common than to see portraits of 
men and women; but it is seldom, very seldom, that we see anything that looks like 
ladies and gentlemen.” And the very ineptitude of this observation has its uses, for it 
calls attention to one of the delightful things about Trott’s miniatures of his best 
period—that they are apt to be portraits of “‘just folks” —just men and women. 

As to Malbone, his sitters are indeed all ladies and gentlemen. All was right with 
Malbone’s world, where gallantry and good breeding were what mattered. His own 

36 


Toe Riez Moment 


famous courtesy and natural gentlemanliness led him to draw the same conclusions 
about taking likenesses that had been expressed long before by Nicholas Hilliard, 
miniaturist and accomplished courtier of Queen Elizabeth’s day. “Now knowe,” wrote 
Hilliard, “that all painting imitateth nature so far forth as the painter’s skill can serve 
him to express it; but of all things the perfection is to imitate the face of mankind 
soe well after the life that not only is the party well resembled for favor and complec- 
tion but even his best graces and countenance notabelly expressed, for there is no 
person but hath variety of looks and countenance, as well ilbecoming as pleasing or 
delighting.” In other words, to quote the elegant language of his friend Washington 
Allston two centuries later, “Malbone had the happy talent among his many excel- 
lencies, of elevating the character without impairing the likeness: this was remarkable 
in the male heads; and no woman ever lost any beauty from his hand; nay, the fair 
would often become still fairer under his pencil.’ 

Edward Greene Malbone was born in Newport in 1777, but Edward Greene, sim- 
ply, was his name and his several sisters bore the same surname, for their mother, Mrs. 
Greene, was never married to the prosperous John Malbone. One of these sisters, ar- 
rived at a sentimental and garrulous middle age, wrote a life of Malbone for Dunlap’s 
History. In it she alludes delicately to “‘an accumulation of evils, not however of a 
pecuniary nature, but from which resulted the . . . negleet of his early education. This 
was the only misfortune respecting himself that I ever heard him lament.” 

Young Edward Greene grew up an earnest lad, filled apparently with a sense of 
responsibility for his sisters, and for his father even more than the usual formal re- 
spect which sons of that time manifested. We shall probably not be far wide of the 
facts if we imagine him growing up in a rather small and mean dwelling, called upon 
by his mother for a maddening number of chores, but finding time, nevertheless, to get 
into some out-of-the-way corner and copy prints and illustrations in books—anything 
he could get hold of. Something he learned of painting from the scene painter in the 
local theatre. From the amiable Samuel King, unsuccessful local portrait painter, now 
turned compass and quadrant maker, he is said to have learned something also. And 
no doubt Mr. King did lend him engravings to copy and gave him encouragement too, 


See Walpole Society Publications, 1911, p. 22. Slight omissions in the text are here made for the sake of clarity. 
*See Dunlap’s History of the Arts of Design in the United States, 1918 edition, II, p. 140. - 


_ 37 


r 


AMERICAN MINIATURES 


just as he had done for Washington Allston. But not much actual instruction did he 
give, surely, for if he had, our decorous Malbone would never have written, as he did 
later, “West was surprised to find how far I had advanced without instruction.” 
As an illustration of how Malbone taught himself to draw, there still exists a good copy 
which the young artist made after Bartolozzi’s engraving of the Birth of Shakespeare 
by Angelica Kauffmann. 

In 1794, when he was seventeen, Malbone quietly went to Providence to make his 
way as a miniature painter. He wrote to his father from that city that he anticipated 
success and hoped soon to be able to relieve his father of supporting the family (1), i.e., 
the Greene household, of course. “‘I must conclude,” writes this model offspring, “with 
making use of that name which I shall study never to dishonour. Your dutiful son, 
Edward G. Malbone.” It is not known at exactly what date the Greene children were 
granted, by Act of Legislature, the right to use the father’s name. Young Edward’s 
sanguine expectations in 1794 as to his success in Providence were quickly justified, 
and his miniature of Nicholas Power of that city (Plate XX) was probably painted at 
this time. The miniature and Malbone’s receipted bill for it are both owned by the 
Providence Athenzeum. The bill is written in ink and no place or date is given. Below is 
the date 1793 pencilled in a different hand, but the miniature with its Providence sub- 
ject was probably painted the following year. It is already a remarkably accomplished 
work, indeed entirely professional and acceptable. Already in this youthful work is 
sensed Malbone’s implied assertion that this is a happy and well-bred world, peopled 
with handsome, well-dressed people. 

Young Malbone remained in Providence about two years, and when in 1796 he 
went to Boston, he again made an easy conquest. Here at the age of twenty he painted 
his beautiful portrait of himself which is signed E. G. M. (See Frontispiece.) He found 
Washington Allston, the South Carolinian whom he had known in Newport, now a 
freshman at Harvard. Excited over Malbone’s wonderful miniatures, Allston tells us 
he tried his hand at them, too, but was disgusted with the result and gave it up after a 
few attempts. He tells on himself the story that someone, after many years, showed him 
one of these attempts without explanation and the painter, justly he says, pronounced 
it to be “without promise.’ 

*See Dunlap’s History of the Arts of Design in the United States, 1918 Edition, I, p. 300. 
* 38 


Mrs. James Lownpes By MALBoNe JANE WrnTHROP By FRASER 
Davin Moses By MALBONE JorL Pornsett By MALBONE 


PLATE XXII 


Tue Riepz MomMENT 


Malbone now began the itinerant life so usual with the painters of his day, going 
to New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston. In 1801, he went with Allston for a few 
months to England, where he especially admired the portraits he saw by Lawrence and 
miniatures by Cosway and Shelley. To Shelley he paid the compliment of copying 
(possibly he made some slight changes) his Hours, sub-titled Fair Venus’ Train, which 
had already become known through Nutter’s engraving published in 1788. 

On his return to America, Malbone painted in Charleston, Newport, New York, and 
other cities. During most of the years 1804 and ’05 he remained in Boston, and during 
the winter of 1805-06 ne painted some miniatures again in Charleston. But they were his 
last, for, owing to tuberculosis, his health was now gone, and about a year later he died. 

Thus the professional career of America’s foremost painter of miniatures lasted a 
little less than twelve years. If, like Nicholas Hilliard, Malbone always painted his 
sitter so that his “best graces and countenance was notably expressed,” he, neverthe- 
less, did actually contrive, as Washington Allston claimed for him, to give us convincing 
portraits—to impair the likeness to a remarkably slight degree. Where his men sitters 
seem too pretty to be true, we should remember that often they were mere beardless 
youths when their portraits were painted. Thus, it would be hard to find anywhere 
a truer picture of a hypersensitive adolescent than the searching little portrait of the 
twenty-year-old Charles Harris (Plate X XI), painted in Boston in 1804, when Mal- 
bone’s talent had been fully developed. And as to virility and veracity, there is surely 
no lack of these desiderata in such portraits as those of Joel Poinsett, Nicholas Fish, 
Archibald Taylor, and the Unknown Man of Mr. Herbert DuPuy’s collection. 

As to Malbone’s women, probably no one has ever denied their loveliness. Their 
variety, however, also deserves comment, for we have here no mere repetitions of an 
artist’s favourite type, painted in the presence of separate sitters. Instead, there is the 
rosy, cosy little portrait of Mrs. Nicholas Bleecker :! there is the exquisite profile of the 
girlish Eliza Fenno with her “boyish bob,” wondering seriously what life is going to be 
like; there are Mrs. James Lowndes, the airy Southern beauty, and Mrs. Richard C. 
Derby, the dainty beauty from Boston, whom Copley in his London days painted as 
Saint Cecelia; there is the human young Miss Poinsett of the liquid eyes, still a little 


1Mrs. Bleecker’s portrait is the Frontispiece in A. H. Wharton’s Heirlooms. The others are illustrated in the 
present work. 


39 


AMERICAN MINIATURES 


dazed at finding herself alive after a serious illness; there is Rebecca Gratz with her 
compassionate mouth and her serious, intelligent brown eyes; and, lastly and one of 
the best, there is Mrs. Thomas Amory of Boston, a young and handsome matron whose 
unflinching eyes and pretty, resolute mouth, give warning to her world that she is pre- 
pared to dominate it. 

As to Malbone’s technical method, it would seem prosaic to attempt its analysis. 
Dunlap would merely have remarked that he “painted in the line style.” And so he 
did. He hatched and cross-hatched with exquisite skill, but he appears never to have 
stippled. As a craftsman what must delight us most in his work is the easy accuracy 
of his drawing and the clear beauty of his colour. Perhaps no more beautiful example 
of his draughtsmanship could be cited than his miniature of Joel Poinsett, which can be 
all the better appreciated if we follow Horace Walpole’s suggestion and submit it to 
the test of enlargement (Plates XXII and XXX). 

His colour, as we have remarked, is another of Malbone’s great charms. His 
favourite scheme, which we see illustrated in such miniatures as those of Miss Poinsett, 
Major Wragg, Archibald Taylor, and Mrs. Lowndes, is an intermingling of clear pur- 
ple with Boucher blue. The effect is similar to the precious Chinese porcelain of the 
Sung dynasty, known as Chiin-yao. In the dainty portrait of Mrs. Lowndes, Malbone 
has kept his shadows light and airy, even going to the length of brightening the eye 
sockets with touches of gold powder, as a strong magnifying glass discovers. His por- 
trait of Rebecca Gratz, on the contrary, is all toned down to browns in accord with 
the sitter’s brown eyes, and the portrait of Mrs. Thomas Amory is a harmony of gray 
and lavender. . Rare 

In the work of Benjamin Trott there is discoverable no such diverting variety 
within the uniformity of a style triumphantly determined. Variety there is aplenty, to 
be sure, but of a puzzling sort. As for triumphant uniformity, there are indeed char- 
acteristic and indubitable Trotts to be found, but miniatures also come to hand which 
are almost surely by Trott, or probably by Trott, or merely possibly by Trott, Thus, 
we see at once that Trott lacked Malbone’s high talent, integrity, conviction. For one 
thing, his active career extended somewhere near fifty years as against Malbone’s 
twelve, which would lead us to expect some changes in style. But apart from this, Trott 
undoubtedly had spells of imitativeness, of passionate eclecticism. We have already 

40 


a 


THe Ripe Moment 


witnessed his attempt to discover the supposed chemical secrets of the successes of 
others, especially of Walter Robertson. In 1806, when his own work was strongest and 
Robertson was probably ten years gone from America, Dunlap tells us that Trott’s 
mind was still possessed by this “megrim,” this “most mischieveous notion.” When 
Malbone on one occasion suggested swapping miniatures with him, Trott immediately 
suspected a ruse designed to demonstrate how inferior his work was to Malbone’s. 
All this odd behaviour Dunlap shrewdly explains by observing that Trott seemed to 
have a consciousness of inferiority. He all but calls it an inferiority complex. 

As to Trott’s copies after Gilbert Stuart’s portraits, if we have correctly identified 
them, they are of very unequal merit. The Joseph Anthony and the Joseph Anthony, 
Jr., which are painted in one and the same style, are a heavy travesty on the work of 
Walter Robertson. They were probably painted before 1800. A later work, in which we 
recognize Trott’s very own style with its clarity and ease, is the copy after Stuart’s Mrs. 
James Greenleaf, and no one could ask for a more beautiful miniature (Plate XXVI). 

But, compared to works by Malbone and Fraser, those of Trott are rare despite 
his long life. If this is due partly to the difficulty of identifying them, it is also true that 
Dunlap more than once deplores Trott’s idleness and waste of time over side issues. In 
1805, however, we are told that Trott made a journey on horseback into the “Western 
world beyond the mountains,” carrying his painting materials in his saddlebags; and 
thus he spent a very lucrative year. One of his finest miniatures (Plate XV) was probably 
painted at this time. The costume would date it between 1800 and 1810. Much of its 
beauty, as with all of Trott’s characteristic works, lies in the clarity of its colour, the 
absence of artificiality or mannerism, and the pearly harmonious relation between the 
figure and the almost bare ivory which constitutes the background. The sitter in this 
case is a man of action, a vigorous man of about forty years. There is nothing of the 
dandy or the courtier in him, and Trott has not tried to supply the quality. In the back 
of the frame is a fragment cut from the end of a letter signed: “Goodbye, Chas. 
Wilkins.” In pencil is added (later, of course): “Lexington, Ky., July 1824.” Another 
beautiful and unquestionably veracious miniature probably resulting from the visit 
to the “Western world” is the portrait of Charles Floyd of Virginia. Shortly after his 
return to Philadelphia in 1806 Trott painted the appealingly unstudied miniature of 
Peregrine Wroth (Plate XX VI), who was then a young medical student at the Uni- 

41 


AMERICAN MINIATURES 


versity of Pennsylvania. It was perhaps two years later still that he painted his ex- 
quisite unfinished miniature of Nicholas Biddle, merely a delicate monochromatic 
sketch on the naked ivory (Plate XXV). The beautiful Byronic young man must 
have sat to Trott not long after the termination of his mission to France, whence he 
returned in 1807 at the age of twenty-one. 

Trott continued to make Philadelphia his home until 1820 or later, and he must 
have painted many miniatures which are hidden away in the dark houses of old Phila- 
delphia families. Late in his stay he made at least one brilliant little portrait of Ben- 
jamin Chew Wilcocks, and a beautiful proud miniature of Miss Waln. For some years 
he lived in comparative seclusion in Newark, New Jersey, where he had gone ap- 
parently to secure a divorce from a wife whom he had annexed in a rash moment. 
Here he painted miniature portraits that are still very fair but not so free and clear as 
the early ones. Among these is the John Woods Poinier belonging to the Rhode Island 
School of Design, and the little portrait of Mrs. Alexander W. Macomb (Plate XXVI). 
The miniature of Lewis Adams (Plate XXV) painted in 1828, long after Trott’s best 
period, has still about it much that is serious and fine, as, for instance, the strong draw- 
ing of the sullen mouth. 

Perhaps the discussion of Fraser’s work should have taken precedence of Trott and 
so have followed immediately upon our remarks about Malbone, for Malbone was 
Fraser’s early inspiration. Charles Fraser was born in Charleston, South Carolina, and 
spent his entire life in that city except for a few short trips North. He was born early 
enough to have been a grown-up lad of eighteen reading law when Malbone visited 
Charleston in 1800, and he lived almost until the outbreak of the Civil War. He was a 
friend and admirer of Malbone, the successful Yankee miniature painter, who was, 
after all, only five years older than he, and of course he thought the world of young 
Washington Allston, who was all his life such a tremendous social favourite that we are 
forced to wonder whether his talents might not have actually been blighted by it all. 

But Fraser had strong leanings toward art before ever Malbone and Allston 
came to Charleston. He had tried his hand at miniatures, at water-colour sketches on 
paper, and at paintings. He was destined, however, for the law, and so he “read law,” 
after a fashion, for some three or four years until the example and perhaps the per- 
suasion of his two friends caused him to drop the law and try art as a career. To this 

42 


Lapy with A Pink Scarr py MALBonp ARCHIBALD Taytor BY MaLBone 


Nicuouas Fish py MALBone THomas Mmans py MaABone 


PLATE XXIII 


Tur Lirttr Scotca Girt sy MALBONE 


A Man sy Matson Mrs. Toomas Amory or Boston py MALBonne 


PLATE XXIV 


NicHouas BippLe BY TRoTT 


Lewis ApAms BY TROTT A Man sy Trott 


PLATE XXV 


Mrs. JaMps GREENLEAF BY Trott (AFTER STUART) PEREGRINE WrotH By TROTT 
Mrs, ALEXANDER N. Macoms spy Trott Epwarp JOHNSON CoaALe By TROTT 


PLATE XXVI 


Tue Ripe MomMENT 


period, about 1802, belong the charming miniature of his ten-year-old niece Jane 
Winthrop (illustrated by Alice R. H. Smith), and another in the same style of little 
Sarah Ladson, who grew up to be Mrs. Gilmor of Baltimore (Plate XX VII). The style 
of these early works is based on Malbone’s—i.e., the “line style” again and very prettily 
modelled. Three years of it, however, convinced Fraser that he would have to return to 
the law, and finally, in 1807, he was admitted to the bar. By 1818, when he was thirty- 
six, he had laid by enough money to make it safe to go back finally to painting minia- 
tures. But by this time he had developed a style of his own far in advance of his work 
in 1802, and we are forced to suspect him of unfaithfulness to his “jealous mistress”’ 
during all those legal years. His miniature of one of his Winthrop nieces, probably Jane 
again (Plate XXII), is a portrait of rare beauty and charm showing the child now ar- 
rived at the proud age of fifteen or sixteen years, and thus, if it is indeed Jane and 
not one of her sisters, painted about 1807 or 1808. Its fine texture reminds strongly of 
Malbone, as does its colour. But the method is now that of stipple, and the colour has 
in it more amethyst than Malbone was accustomed to use. 

As the years passed, these characteristics of Fraser’s work became more pro- 
nounced, the stipple becoming bolder as the average size of his ivories grew, and a 
deeper shade of amethyst becoming a usual note—as in the quizzical portrait of Henry 
Ogden (Plate XXVII). But there is an interesting variety in his colour. Of Mrs. Ralph 
Izard at the age of eighty, whom Copley had painted so charmingly half a century be- 
fore, he paints a miniature all in tones of black and white, enlivened only by its red 
leather case (Plate XXVIII). Mrs. Theodore Gourdin, also no longer young, he paints 
becomingly in gray and lilac (Plates XV and XXX); and although one would have said 
his portraits of old ladies were his most delightful works, he has put the same affec- 
tion into his portrait of old Dr. Baron, with his spectacles on his forehead (Plate 
XXVIII). The cold light of day which he turns full upon James Gourdin (Plate XXIX) 
is in entire sympathy with Fraser’s conception of the subject’s “hard-boiled”’ nature. 
Indeed, Fraser’s passion for the frank observation of character and its facial indica- 
tions contributes a pronounced interest to his work—constitutes, perhaps, even its 
chief interest. And yet Fraser’s people seldom come quite alive for us, their qualities 
seeming as though diluted: his reading of character, interesting though it always is, 
never for a moment achieves profundity. 

43 


IX. PHILADELPHIA AGAIN—AND BALTIMORE 


REMBRANDT PEALE—RAPHAEL PEALE—ANNAC. PEALE—M. J. 
SIMES—SULLY—FREEMAN-~—SAUNDERS 


In PHILADELPHIA, early in the Nineteenth Century, we find the name of Peale con- 
tinues to be prominent where art is mentioned. As we have seen, James, the younger 
brother of Charles Willson, continued to paint in miniature at least as late as 1812. 
Meanwhile, the numerous second generation had begun to paint, too, and soon at 
least one member of the third. Charles Willson Peale had many children by his first 
wife, and for these he prognosticated, or perhaps rather sought through invocation, 
artistic careers of the first magnitude by the names he bestowed upon them. Among 
these were Raphael, Angelica Kauffmann, Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Titian, and 
Rubens. 

But the only one of all the children to achieve much fame was Rembrandt. We 
have already seen him at the age of seventeen sitting beside his father and painting 
President Washington from life. He later attempted miniatures also, but just how far 
he went in this field is a matter for conjecture. We know one interesting miniature por- 
trait of an unknown man (Plate XX XI) which is signed R. P. and dated 1800 and there 
are at least four others by the same hand, portraying Benjamin I. Cohen of Balti- 
more, Andrew Ellicott of Pennsylvania,! and Abijah Brown and Doyle E. Sweeney 
(Plate XX XI). There is evidence in the papers of the Peale family that Rembrandt 
had announced himself as a‘ Portrait Painter in Oil and in Miniature” during the years 
1796 and 1799, while he was associated with his elder brother Raphael in Baltimore. 
Dunlap also calls attention to his advertisement in a Philadelphia newspaper in De- 
cember of 1804 reading, ““REMBRANDT, PORTRAIT PAINTER IN LARGE AND SMALL,’ etc. 

On the other hand, there exists a letter written late in 1799 by the anxious sire of 
Rembrandt and Raphael in which he tells that Raphael has settled in Philadelphia 


1See A. H. Wharton, Social Life in the Early Republic, p. 54, for the Ellicott miniature. A photograph of the 
Cohen miniature, attributed to Trott, is at the Frick Art Reference Library. 


44 


Ona 


PHILADELPHIA AGAIN—AND BALTIMORE 


“and follows miniature painting,” while Rembrandt is travelling through Maryland, 
where his portraits are admired for their force of execution.! An advertisement in a 
Philadelphia paper, August 3, 1801, reads: ppatH Deprives us of our Friends, And 
then we regret having neglected an opportunity of obtaining their LIKENESSES. 
Raphaelle Peale Painter (in Miniature and Large), Will deliver LikENESSES At 
No. 28, POWELL STREET, Which is between Spruce and Pine and running from Fifth 
to Sixth street.” Thus the possibility presents itself that the R. P. on our miniatures 
may refer to Raphael rather than Rembrandt. Another letter from the father written 
in September, 1804, states that Rembrandt, then in Philadelphia, “has only painted 
one miniature and is dispirited for the want of encouragement in the art of painting.” 

A single odd and entertaining miniature is known which may very well show Rem- 
brandt’s style at the age of twenty-three, a very different matter from the group of 
miniatures already described. It is the brownish, rather clumsily hatched portrait of 
his brother Rubens, still owned in the Peale family, which shows a solemn youth peer- 
ing directly ahead through narrow spectacles with octagonal lenses. The identical pose 
occurred in the portrait of this young man, shown in the Peale exhibition of 1923 
(No. 73) where he holds a potted red geranium in his hand—said to have been the first 
geranium brought to America. This painting is signed: Rem. Peale 1801. 

The career of Rembrandt Peale extended, of course, for several decades after the 
time of the little Rubens Peale portrait, and many Philadelphia miniatures which ex- 
hibit rather prosaic likenesses painted in heavy browns and blacks have been at- 
tributed to him, but they are probably in reality by Thomas E. Barratt in most cases 
and perhaps by Jacob Eichholtz of Lancaster in some. A miniature which may with 
fair certainty be attributed to Barratt is the portrait of Josiah Elder of Harrisburg 
(Plate XX XV.) Summing up the entire matter, then, we must conclude that Rembrandt 
Peale can have had no real importance in the miniature field and should be taken 
seriously only in the field of portraits painted in oils. It is generally agreed that the best 
of these are the portraits of celebrities painted for his father’s museum during two trips 
made to France in 1807 and 1809 for this express purpose. Among his sitters were 
Gay-Lussac, von Humboldt, Cuvier, Denon, Houdon, and David. A 

Returning then to Rembrandt Peale’s elder brother Raphael (or Raphaelle as he 


From information kindly supplied by Horace Wells Sellers, Esq. 
; AS 


AMERICAN MINIATURES 


himself capriciously preferred to spell it), we definitely learn upon searching further 
that it is he, not Rembrandt, who painted the miniatures signed R. P. Much patient 
rummaging among old papers has discovered a photograph of the Andrew Ellicott 
miniature which is illustrated in Miss Wharton’s book as noted above. The photograph 
reveals what the half-tone fails to show, namely, a clear signature: Rap. Peale 1801. 
Later on were discovered two little portraits of Maryland sitters both again dated 
1801. That of Henry Ward Pearce, aged 64, is signed Raph’ Peale, while that of his son 
Benjamin is signed in full: Raphaelle Peale. To these three clearly signed works, 
Mr. Du Puy’s Portrait of a Man, signed R. P., and the three unsigned portraits 
already mentioned may be added the unsigned but characteristic portrait of 
Major-General Thomas Acheson. In style the miniatures thus far identified owe much 
to James Peale, yet they are refreshingly untraditional. The facial expressions tend 
toward alertness and gentleness. The colour is comparatively undiversified, the coats 
being rendered in solid gauche and the features modelled in blue hatching with little 
colour in the flesh. The backgrounds are pale and clear and sometimesstriated as though 
with. clouds. No feminine subjects have thus far been recognized as by Raphael Peale. 

Still another member of this astonishing family to make a name as a painter was 
Anna Claypoole Peale, a daughter of James and therefore a niece of Charles Willson. 
One of the earliest miniatures by her of which we happen to know is her portrait of Mrs. 
Andrew Jackson, which Miss Wharton tells us was painted in 1819. A charming and 
typical example of her work is the miniature of young Eleanor Britton (Plate XX XI), 
who later married William Musgrave of Philadelphia. It is signed in full, as most of 
Anna Peale’s work is, and dated 1821. During the ’twenties she painted many minia- 
tures in Philadelphia and Baltimore, and at least as late as 1838 she was still painting 
in both cities, signing her maiden name or her married name, Mrs, A. C. Staughton, as 
happened to please her at the moment. Though twice widowed, she continued painting 
in New York, Washington, and Boston, as well as Philadelphia and Baltimore, and 
like most of her family she lived to a ripe old age. Her work is always sprightly, charm- 
ing, and entertaining, though usually shallow. If one dared, one would use the forbidden 
word “‘cute”’ in its colloquial American sense, to describe most of Anna Peale’s minia- 
tures of ladies. 

Anna Peale’s niece, Mary Jane Simes, who was a Baltimorean, carried the tradi- 

46 


LS 
mat 


PHILADELPHIA AGAIN—AND BALTIMORE 


tional family profession into the third generation. We know little about her except 


that James Peale’s daughter Jane was her mother, that she was “herself a living 


miniature,” 


and that her father was one Samuel Simes (whose name rhymed with 
“hymns”’). As early as 1831 she lived in Baltimore with her Aunt Sarah Peale, the por- 
trait painter, and her presumably widowed mother, who taught music. She painted her 
signed miniatures of Mr. and Mrs. Robert D. Burns of Baltimore in 1829; her portraits 
of Captain and Mrs. Robert Hardie are dated Baltimore, 1832, while the portrait of 
Mrs. John Christian Brune (Plate XXXII) should be dated yet a few years later, ac- 
cording to the sitter’s costume. Miss Simes’s miniatures while retaining the charm 
of her Aunt Anna Claypoole Peale’s work are somewhat more serious portraiture. 

Bidding farewell finally to the Peale family, we turn to the consideration of 
Thomas Sully as a painter of miniatures. It is with difficulty that we associate his name 
with any city other than Philadelphia. As a matter of fact, however, Sully had already 
lived about twenty-six years of his life before he settled in the City of Brotherly Love, 
and although that may seem a mere trifle in a life that lasted eighty-nine years, the 
point for us is that most of Sully’s productivity as a miniature painter had occurred 
before Philadelphia saw him. 

It was in Charleston, South Carolina, that Thomas Sully received his early 
schooling, such as it was, his English parents, who were actors, having come to that 
city in the pursuit of their calling. When he was sixteen years old, his relations with his 
French drawing master, Monsieur Belzons, terminated in a furious fist fight, and young 
Thomas managed somehow to persuade a skipper to take him to Richmond. Here he 
joined his brother Lawrence, a miniature painter who was thirteen years older than he 
and already responsible for a wife and a growing family of little girls—luxuries he could 
ill afford, for Lawrence Sully’s success in his profession was not great, nor did the 
quality of his work merit general enthusiasm (Plate XXXII). 

Within two years of his coming to Richmond, i. e., by 1801, according to Dunlap, 
Thomas Sully was the better artist of the two and the main support of the household. 
The scale on which the young Sullys lived in those days may be judged by the figures 
in Thomas’s meticulous Register, then already begun, which shows that in the year 
1801 he took in a total of one hundred and eighty dollars. His fifth miniature, that of 
Monsieur Ott, the jeweller, which he painted that year, is inscribed on the back: 
° 47 


AMERICAN MINIATURES 


T. Sully, Miniature and Fancy Painter, Norfolk, 1801. This reference to himself helps to 
draw our attention to an aspect of Sully’s work and taste too often overlooked. Biddle 
and Fielding, in their book on Sully, list more than five hundred fancy pictures, and 
Dunlap’s biography of Sully opens with a tribute to this successful portrait painter, 
“whose designs in fancy subjects all partake of the elegant correctness of his char- 
acter.” As to Sully’s “elegant correctness” it may be observed that we hear no more of 
fisticuffs from young Thomas after his bout with Belzons. Portraits of him as he 
matured, advanced, and finally aged all contribute to our impression of a mild, correct, 
and kindly gentleman. 

To return to those early days, however, we find that, while his brother Lawrence 
was continuing to pin his faith to Richmond, Thomas Sully was trying his luck in 
Petersburgh and in Norfolk in which city he was fortunate in having his first instruc- 
tion in oil painting from Henry Benbridge. But in 1804 or early 1805 Lawrence died, 
and after a year’s decent interval, Thomas married the widow, an attractive woman 
whom he had already perhaps been in love with for years without knowing it. She bore 
him several children in addition to the four daughters she had already borne to Lawr- 
ence. 

By this time Thomas Sully was about twenty-three years old and had painted 
more than forty of the entire sixty-odd miniatures which his biographers credit him 
with during a long lifetime. Unlike Malbone, Sully did not come quickly into his full 
stride, and these early works are not particularly impressive. 

But now Sully’s ambitions were all in the direction of painting in oils, and he went 
to New York, where Jarvis helped him with useful hints, and to Boston where Stuart 
taught him what he conveniently could. In the autumn of 1808 he was back in New 
York where he found the Embargo in force and times hard, but Jarvis took him in as an 
assistant. 

Karly the next year Sully was urged by Benjamin Wilcocks to come to Philadel- 
phia, which he was glad to do. Several gentlemen of that city joined in patronizing 
the promising young artist and sent him to England to complete his training. Arrived 
in London, Sully went as a matter of course to ask the advice of Benjamin West, 
bringing with him a portrait he had recently painted. West’s stern advice was, “study 
anatomy.” This advice Sully unfortunately never took with sufficient seriousness. 

48 


PHILADELPHIA AGAIN—AND BALTIMORE 


Instead he studied Sir Thomas Lawrence, and much that is lovely and at times even 
brilliant in Sully’s style can be traced to this source, but also much that is facile. 

The development of his style in miniature painting naturally paralleled his work 
in oils, and his little portrait of Mrs. Caroline Shoemaker (Plate XXXII), to take a 
typical example of the period after his London schooling, is lovely in the grace of the 
relaxed pose and in the harmony of pale flesh against the olive background relieved by 
touches of sky-blue; but as usual there is wanting in the face that reassuring rightness 
of drawing which we always get from Malbone. 

Another miniature painter whom one usually, and with reason, thinks of as a 
Philadelphian is George Freeman. He was a farmer’s boy from Connecticut who taught 
himself to paint miniatures and who probably never saw Philadelphia until 1837 
when he was almost fifty years old. He had spent twenty-four years in England and 
seems to have had considerable success there, though his drawing always remained a 
very weak point. He was fortunate, however, in being able to catch something of the 
loveliness of his women sitters when they had that quality. After his return to America, 
‘he was particularly favoured in Philadelphia in having as a sitter Mrs. Edward Biddle, 
earlier known as the charming Miss Sarmiento and as Mrs. Craig. But for the miniature 
Freeman painted of this lovely lady he would probably be almost forgotten to-day: 
Freeman painted on comparatively large pieces of ivory, as the fashion demanded in 
the ’thirties and "forties. 

Another painter who flourished at about the time Freeman was painting in Phila- 
delphia, and whose work is far from rare, is George L. Saunders. He usually signed his 
miniatures by scratching his signature G. L. Saunders, through the paint with the 
point of a needle. Except for his practice of signing his work, it would be hard to be- 
lieve that all his miniatures come from the one artist, for they differ in quality as blue 
‘skim-milk differs from cream. Some are thin, almost devoid of modelling, harsh in 
colour and stereotyped in drawing, whereas the best examples, such as the portraits 
of Thomas Bartow Sargent and his wife Sophia Carroll Sargent (Plate XX XIII), are 
well modelled, and richly yet harmoniously coloured. 

Saunders’s sitters are mostly Baltimore people, and their portraits seem generally 
to have been painted between the years 1840 and 1845. But Saunders’s name does not 
appear in the Baltimore street directories of the time. Probably he worked in Philadel- 

49 


AMERICAN MINIATURES 


phia also, for among his best works are his portraits of Benjamin C. Wilcocks 
and his wife. As to his origin, George L. Saunders should doubtless be identified 
with the Scottish painter of that name who frequently exhibited miniatures in 
London between 1829 and 1853, and who painted portraits in little of Lord Byronand 


Princess Charlotte. 


‘50 


Henry OGpen By FRASER 


SaraH Lapson BY FRASER Eviz: 


Fenno py Matsone—Actuat Hercut 3§ Incues 


PLATE XXVII 


TWAXX G@LV 1d 


UaSVUY AD GUVZ] Hd TVyY “Sap 


udsvuy Ad NOUVG YAGNVXATY “aq 


XIXX GLVId 


YaASVA AM NIGUNOY SaNV’: uasvuy Ad UEDA “We SIONVUy 


Firrtp>—ENLARGED DETAIL MaLBonr—ENLARGED DETAIL 


C. W. PEALE—ENLARGED DETAIL FRASER—ENLARGED DETAIL 


PLATE XXX 


X. EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY NEW YORK 


DICKINSON—DUNLAP—JARVIS—WOOD—INMAN 


Nw York in the first two decades of the Nineteenth Century had become a large and 
bustling city which challenged the supremacy of Boston and Philadelphia. From being 
the least of these cities in the matter of resident artists, as it was in the active days of 
Copley and Charles Willson Peale, it had now become a centre to which ambitious 
young artists naturally gravitated. Thus a considerable group of capable portrait 
painters who worked in oils or in water colour on ivory or else in both media made New 
York their headquarters, though opportunities in other cities or else sheer Wanderlust 
beckoned some of them away sooner or later. | i ai 

One of the talented young men who came to New York was Anson Dickinson. He 
was born near Litchfield, Connecticut, and his father, who was himself somewhat of 
a portrait painter, had the boy apprenticed to a silversmith and later sent him to 
Hartford to take lessons in drawing. He was highly talented and learned by imitating 
some of Malbone’s miniatures. Dunlap tells us that Dickinson was painting miniatures 
in New York at least as early as 1804. From 1805 to 1810, he had a good practice in 
Albany. In 1811, he was at work again in New York, and Dunlap considered him the 
best miniaturist working there at the time. A very handsome and promising young man 
Dunlap thought him, but the promise of his youth had not been realized owing to a 
‘wandering and irregular life.”” Perhaps Dunlap was too much inclined to pessimism 
over irregularities of conduct. He had never ceased regretting his own early indiscre- 
tions in London, and such deplorable cases as that of Jarvis had left him sad. However, 
as regards Anson Dickinson, H. W. French! agrees with Dunlap, observing that Dickin- 
son, “Narcissus-like, was waylaid by his own beauty.” In spite of this, there are fortu- 
nately some choice miniatures by Dickinson, painted during the “irregular” part of 
his life, namely the 1820's. 

From Dickinson’s earlier New York and Albany period there are such sensitive 


1See: Art and Artists in Connecticut, Boston, 1879. 
51 


AMERICAN MINIATURES 


portraits as that of Robert Dorlon of Catskill, New York, painted in 1806 (Plate 
XXXIV) as well as the miniature of a man thought to be J. W. Gale (Plate XX XVII) 
and that of Mrs. Robert Watts (Plate XXXIV). One sees at a glance that Dickinson 
had a rare talent for revealing the gentler aspects of his male sitters without making 
milksops of them. The most distinguishing characteristic of his work is his love of 
almost monochromatic colour. His J. W. Gale has an olive skin against a dark choco- 
late ground (a favourite combination), and in his Mrs. Watts he has merely used va- 
rious shades of olive together with a white dress. 

Contemporary with Anson Dickinson was William Dunlap himself, who, as we 
have seen, had some acquaintance with this “irregular” and very handsome young 
miniature painter from Connecticut. Dunlap had indeed an acquaintance with a great 
many American painters over many years, and this fact adds greatly to the correct- 
ness as well as the vividness of his invaluable History of the Rise and Progress of the Arts 
of Design in the United States. He was sixty-eight years old when this opus was published 
and had been knocking about the country meeting people since boyhood. Although 
he wrote and adapted many plays and wrote also a History of the American Theatre, 
and although, moreover, he painted many miniatures and was a more or less active 
painter of portraits and religious pictures during not less than twenty years of his life, 
Dunlap’s activities as the “American Vasari” remain his life’s chief contribution so 
far as we are concerned to-day. 

In his History, Dunlap has written a long autobiography which shows him to have 
been a frank, likable, and unassuming man, with too many conflicting interests and 
curiosities ever to have trained himself thoroughly to any one accomplishment. In 
London, as a boy of eighteen, he continued to indulge himself as he had always been 
indulged at home—but with a difference. He had little or nothing to do with the 
drawing and painting he had come to London to learn, and for the rest of his life, as 
we have seen, regretted those early dissipations and lost opportunities. 

But in other forms he continued through life to indulge his insatiable curiosity 
and love of change. From painting, after his return from England, he went into really 
heart-felt Abolitionist activities, from Abolitionist activities into business with his 
father, and from business into theatrical ventures which bankrupted him. He now 
tried miniature painting as a way to make a living, and in pursuit of sitters managed 

52 


wa 


EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY New York 


to see Albany, Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. It was at this time, 1806, that he 
painted several miniatures of his friend Charles Brockden Brown, the amiable Phila- 
delphia novelist. Dunlap was now forty years old and married into the cultivated Con- 
necticut family of Woolsey, which gave him President Dwight of Yale for a brother-in- 
law. But, when an offer suddenly came to manage a theatre, painting was again utterly 
forgotten for six years. The theatrical work having next developed disagreeable aspects, 
and a magazine ( ! ) having exhausted his funds, Dunlap returned to painting minia- 
tures in 1812, and it must have been at this time that he painted in Hartford his minia- 
ture of Mary Langrell Bigelow, wife of Major Aaron Olmsted (Plate XXXVI). 

“I was discouraged,’ Dunlap once wrote, “by finding that I did not perceive 
the beauty or effect of colours as others appeared to do. Whether this was a natural 
defect, or connected with the loss of the sight of an eye, I cannot determine.” 
However this may be, certainly his miniatures bear testimony to the defect described, 
for besides being ill-drawn, they have scarcely more colour than a freshly caught 
halibut. 

After he had filled his commissions in Hartford and New Haven, Dunlap pro- 
ceeded to Boston, where he showed some of his miniatures to Stuart and was solemnly 
advised to try painting in oils. Accordingly, he returned to New York and had been 
painting in oils for two years when, out of a clear sky, came the offer of a position as 
assistant paymaster general of the state militia. Of course, Dunlap took the job, for 
didn’t the work include the exploration of parts of New York State which he had never 
seen—not to mention a regular salary? 

And so it went. But after 1819 (he was then fifty-three years old) he actually did 
devote a large part of his time to painting, and a few miniatures were included in his 
output. Oil portraits he painted in considerable numbers, finding sitters from Virginia 
to Vermont, and some of these works were attractive and well painted. Part of his in- 
come, meanwhile, came from the public exhibition of large religious paintings which, 
to judge from his own descriptions, must have been in the bombastic (or heroic) style 
which had grown famous with Benjamin West. His Christ Rejected, Dunlap exhibited 
in scores of cities and even in towns and villages. 

John Wesley Jarvis was another of the young artists who came to New York 
early in the century. Fourteen years younger than Dunlap, Jarvis was in some ways 

53 


AMERICAN MINIATURES 


even more eccentric, though lacking Dunlap’s disinterested and distracting enthusiasm 
for causes and worthy enterprises. He had, in any case, far more talent for painting 
than Dunlap ever revealed and was better at sticking to his last. 

Jarvis had his early training mostly from David Edwin, the English engraver, 
when they were both employed in Philadelphia by Edward Savage, Jarvis being an 
apprentice at the time. In 1802, the termination of his apprenticeship found him in 
New York, and he set himself up as an engraver on his own account. He was now 
twenty-two years old. Soon he fell in with a young man of about his own age, named 
Joseph Wood, and the two agreed to become partners and open a studio together for 
painting miniatures. This they did, and according to all accounts they had a very 
hilarious time of it together, both being convivial by nature and young by the accident 
of birth. For a while, they did a rushing business in eglomisé silhouettes—gold-leaf and 
black on glass—but gradually Wood got commissions for miniatures and Jarvis went 
in for oil painting. The attention of both these gay young men was a good deal taken 
up at this time with what Dunlap (in stage-whisper italics) calls mysterious marriages, 
and it is hinted that the breaking up of the partnership after a few years was due to a 
difficulty over such dark matters. 

It was about this time that Jarvis painted the signed miniature of a man (Plate 
XXXVIT) dated 1809, which belongs to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It is typical 
of Jarvis’s portraits of men, whether in oils or miniature, in being virile and solidly 
constructed with a tendency toward coarsening the features, and in being handled 
honestly and directly almost to the point of bluntness. His portraits of women, on the 
other hand, could be gentle and charming and very subtle in colour, as in the minia- 
ture of Miss Anderson (Plate XXXIV). Dunlap tells us that, for all his seeming fri- 
volity, Jarvis was at times a hard student. He kept at his drawing and worked long 
hours over books on anatomy. Dunlap acclaims him probably “the first painter in 
this country who applied phrenological science to the principles of the art of portrait 
painting.” But have we the right to smile? 

It was in 1810, when Jarvis had reached the age of thirty, that he began to ex- 
ploit the Southern cities, especially in the winters. At first he visited Charleston and 
Baltimore, and later, taking his boy apprentice Henry Inman with him, he went more 
than once to New Orleans where, according to his own account, he was able to “clean 

54 


< wry 
4 ae 
miss 


Earuy NinEeETEENTH Century New YorK 


up” six thousand dollars in a season, of which he would spend one half living in luxury 
and entertaining bountifully. His clients enjoyed sitting to him, for he was high- 
spirited and unfailingly witty after his own somewhat boisterous fashion. Dunlap de- 
votes considerable space in his History to accounts of Jarvis’s jokes, practical and other- 
wise. 

His work meanwhile continued perversely to improve, and some of his masculine 
portraits of this period are especially strong and fine. It was at this time, toward the 
close of the War of 1812, that Jarvis received the coveted commission to paint several 
full-length portraits of heroes of that war for the City Hall in New York. Absorbed as 
he was in the pursuit of larger game, he appears by this time to have entirely given up 
painting miniatures. Portraits in oil he continued to paint for a number of years until 
marital difficulties seemed to take the heart out of him and conviviality gave place to 
sottishness. By the age of fifty, according to Dunlap’s description, he had become an 
old and broken man. 

Mention has already been made of Joseph Wood, who was Jarvis’s care-free 
partner in their early New York days. Young Wood, who was the son of a self-respect- 
ing farmer in Orange County, New York, was blessed, or cursed, with that unac- 
countable, seemingly innate passion for drawing which in the course of the world’s 
history has unfitted so many boys for living normally at home. His father adopted 
stern measures with the hope that he might still make a decent farmer of the boy, but 
Joseph, then aged fifteen years, ran away to New York. 

We have no authentic history of how Joseph Wood, who longed to make land- 
scape paintings and had of necessity to make a living, ever came to take up painting 
miniatures. An anecdote of a miniature seen in a silversmith’s window would make it 
appear that Wood taught himself by copying the work of others. Later on, Malbone 
is said to have given him a demonstration of his personal method of preparing the ivory 
and proceeding with the work. In any case, Wood developed an excellent style of his 
own. A typical illustration of it is the miniature of John Greene Proud (Plate XXXVI), 
which was painted in 1812 when Wood had his studio at 160 Broadway, and after, 
perhaps long after, the dissolution of the firm of Jarvis and Wood. The figure of the 
subject is well placed in the oval, and the delicately modelled face has a somewhat 
olive cast. Wood’s backgrounds are often of a rich, pellucid green, becoming lighter as 

55 


AMERICAN MINIATURES 


they approach the dark figure, but in the portrait of Proud there is a blue sky with 
clouds, against which the figure makes an interesting silhouette.. 

In 1813, Joseph Wood appears to have left New York for Philadelphia where he 
remained for several years. Later still, he is said to have painted miniatures in Balti- 
more, and finally he settled in Washington. Dunlap tells us that Nathaniel Rogers 
helped him and his children in the days of his adversity and that he died in Washington 
at the age of fifty-four, but the exact dates of his birth and his death are unknown. 

It was in 1814 that Henry Inman came upon the scene in New York. His parents 
had moved down from Utica two years before, and Henry, who had a passionate 
desire to become a painter, had thus a better opportunity for instruction than could 
have been found in the raw town up-state. And now the celebrated Danaé by the Swed- 
ish painter Wertmiiller was on exhibition at the painting rooms of Mr. Jarvis, so, of 
course, young Henry Inman, scarcely yet thirteen, must go and admire. But while 
Henry was admiring, Jarvis himself came into the room and, liking the boy’s looks 
and speech, asked to have him as an apprentice. And so it was all arranged, and Inman 
became one of the New York painters. 


It was at the peak of Jarvis’s success that this important event took place, when 


that mad wag was beginning his glittering winter seasons in New Orleans and was on 
the point of setting about his big portraits of the naval heroes for the City of New 
York. In New Orleans, young Inman helped on the work by painting in backgrounds 
and parts of costumes, and on the great canvases in New York there must have been 
plenty for the boy to do, what with painting in battle flags, epaulettes, and so forth. 

He stayed out his full term with his master, and a very entertaining and in- 
structive time he must have had of it. As late as 1822, his term of apprenticeship now 
being ended, Dunlap tells of seeing him still in the company of Jarvis, knocking about 
Boston in search of commissions, but apparently finding none. Yet, despite his excel- 
lent opportunities to become a jovial and undependable fellow like his master and 
Anson Dickinson or a restless Jack-of-all-trades like William Dunlap, Henry Inman 
promptly settled down, took a pupil, found a wife, and became a cultivated and re- 
spectable gentleman. The sentimental Mr. H. T. Tuckerman writes a passage descrip- 
tive of the matured Inman which may be repeated for what it is worth: “‘His, however, 
is no confined ability, but rather the liberal scope of an intellectual man. He converses 

56 


Earuy NINETEENTH Century New Yorx«K 


delightfully, recites with peculiar effect, has a discriminating sympathy for literature, 
the drama, and the comedy of life, with genial social instincts, and a warm appreciation 
of whatever appeals to the imagination or involves any principle of taste.” 

With the exception of a few years in the ’thirties when he lived in Philadelphia or 
near by, and a year or two in the early ’forties when he was painting some excellent 
portraits in London, Inman’s life was identified with New York. Here he painted many 
portraits of varying merit, including such excellent full-lengths as those of W. H. 
Seward and Richard Varick and several fine portraits of President Van Buren. When 
the National Academy of Design was organized in 1826, he became its vice-president 
and served in that capacity for many years. In 1842, at a dinner for Charles Dickens, 
where Washington Irving was toastmaster, Inman was one of the speakers. 

As to Inman’s miniatures the broad juicy strokes with which the heads, and 
especially the hair, are painted give unmistakable evidence that the artist is accus- 
tomed to working in oils. The backgrounds, however, are usually made with a fine 
stipple after the manner of the true miniaturist, while the colour, which is usually 
dainty and pastel-like, is not only unlike the colour of Inman’s oil paintings, but is 
quite distinct from that used by other painters in miniature. One of his finest minia- 

tures is the little rectangular portrait of Mrs. Alexander Hamilton, painted when 
- she was aged sixty-eight (Plate XX XTX). A fine characteristic male portrait is that of 
James Bogert, Jr. (Plate XX XVII), where, against a light stippled background, the 
artist has played the sitter’s delicate flesh, gray hair, pea-green coat, and pink and 
white striped waistcoat. His Portrait of a Man (Plate XX XVIII) shows, against a 
sandy yellow background, a pink-faced blond young person in a light gray coat. 
Inman painted very few miniatures, if any, after 1827, in which year he agreed with 
his partner, T. S. Cummings, to give up painting “in little,” Cummings on his part 


agreeing to paint no portraits in oils. 


57 


XI. NEW YORK LATER IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 


CUMMINGS—CATLIN—DODGE—N.ROGERS—MacDOUGALL— 
ANN HALL 


War Henry Inman settled down so sedately in 1821 after his time with Jarvis 
was up, he took into his service a pupil, as we have already observed. This pupil was 
Thomas Seir Cummings, who soon became a capable and prolific painter of miniatures 
and an important figure in the artistic life of New York. The arrangement between 
Inman and Cummings in 1821 was not the old-fashioned relation of master and bound 
apprentice. Cummings had already had some two or three years of creditable training 
in the drawing academy of John R. Smith whereas Inman himself was at the time a 
mere youth of twenty, the difference in age between master and pupil being less than 
three years. 

In 1824, a partnership known as Inman and Cummings was formed. There had 
been a steady demand for Inman’s miniatures, and Cummings had now begun to spe- 
cialize in this unostentatious field. Inman, however, was far more interested in oil paint- 
ing than in miniatures and therefore raised his price for miniatures to fifty dollars while 
Cummings kept his at twenty-five. In spite of this arrangement and the good quality 
of Cummings’s work, many commissions for miniatures continued to come to Inman. 
Vinally, in 1827, at about the time the partnership was dissolved, Inman definitely re- 
fused to accept further orders for miniatures, and for a time it was arranged that 
Cummings should charge fifty dollars, one half to go to Inman. Dunlap calls Cummings 
“the best instructed miniature painter then in the United States.” 

Cummings settled down very early to the serious things of life. At the age of 
eighteen he married a young English lady, Jane Cook by name, and became a steady 
family man. At the age of twenty-three he was elected treasurer of the newly organized 
National Academy of Design and continued to serve in that capacity for nearly forty 
years, serving also for many years as a member of the council and from 1850 to 1859 as 

58 


yt * 


- : 
a re 


si 
: 
. 
a 
a 
“ 
4 
4 
3 
7 


A Man—Dartep 1800—sy RarHarL PEALE Mrs. Epwarp SHOEMAKER BY THOMAS SULLY 


A Lapy—Datep 1818—psy Couuas DoyLeE SwWEENEY BY RapHArEL PEALE 


PLATE XXXI 


Mrs. Jonn C. Brune py Mary Jane Srmes ExLeanor Britton sy Anna C. PEALE 
Tuer Artist’s WirE By THomMAs SULLY 


A Lapy sy Lawrence SULLY Dotty Mapison—Artist UNKNOWN 


PLATE XXXII 


TWXXX ULVId 


SUMGNNVS A INGDUVG MOLUVG SVWOH [, SHMGNOVS AG LNADUVS TIOUNV() VIHdAOG 


Miss ANDERSON BY JARVIS 
Mrs. Rosert Warts spy Dickinson 


PLATE XXXIV 


Rosert Dorion sy Dickinson 
GILBERT StuaRT BY Ezra Ames 


ives 


New York Later In THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 


vice president. He became professor of drawing and painting at the National Academy 
and later at New York University. 

One of Cummings’s early works in miniature is the delightful golden-brown por- 
trait of his wife, painted at about the time of their marriage in 1822 (Plate XL). 
The dress is an elaborate evening confection, and the shoulders and arms are 
quaintly drawn according to the vogue of the day. On her wrist the young lady 
wears a bangle in honour of which the artist gave the miniature the name, The 
Bracelet. 

As a rule miniatures by Cummings lack the freedom of Inman’s work, and 
occasionally they seem almost pedantic, but they are faithful studies of the sitters, 
pleasing in colour, and well executed. An interesting portrait is that of Benson J. Los- 
sing (Plate XLI), a delightfully real transcription of personality made all the more 
pungent by the play of the sitter’s richly black coat against the emerald-green of the 
tablecloth and the upholstered chair in which he sits 

According to his manuscript notes, now in possession of one of his daughters, 
Cummings did not exhibit any miniatures after 1851. His time after that was devoted 
to teaching and to writing his Historic Annals of the National Academy. In 1866 he 
definitely retired from his profession and moved to Mansfield, Connecticut. 

None of the other New York miniaturists working in the second quarter of the 
Nineteenth Century was nearly so prolific as Cummings, and none, unless it may have 
been MacDougall, kept so long at the profession. George Catlin, for one, stopped paint- 
ing miniatures in 1832 or earlier, after a professional career of less than eight years. 
Though born and brought up in Pennsylvania, Catlin belonged to a numerous family 
of that name in Litchfield, Connecticut. It was to Litchfield that he returned to study 
law, and there he was duly admitted to the bar, which ceremony marked the close of 
his legal career. Thereupon Catlin entered West Point and prepared himself for the 
military life, and when this had been satisfactorily accomplished he moved to Philadel- 
phia, throwing himself devotedly into the study of art. He appears to have been self- 
taught. | ; 

In 1824, Catlin inaugurated his professional life as a painter by opening a studio 
at Hartford, but he evidently very soon moved to New York, for his miniature of 
young Charles Edwin Bergh, which was painted in that city, is signed: G. Catlin 

59 


AMERICAN MINIATURES 


1824 (Plate XXXYV). It is a strong, clean-cut, and very handsome piece of work, and 
one looking at it can readily understand Catlin’s prompt election to membership in 
the National Academy. 

Catlin painted in oils, too, and was at this time awarded by the State of New York 
the commission to paint a portrait of DeWitt Clinton for the Governor’s room in the 
City Hall. The result is dark and far from impressive. He also painted portraits of Mrs. 
Clinton and others for the Spring Exhibition, but quarrelled with the National 
Academy over their hanging. A miniature by Catlin of Mrs. Clinton, dated 1828, which 
belonged to the estate of President Andrew Jackson, is not nearly so fine as his minia- 
ture of Bergh. | 

In 1832 Catlin suddenly became interested in American Indians, and thereupon 
devoted eight years to making studies and sketches of forty-eight tribes in the valley 
of the Yellowstone River, in Arkansas and in Florida. He wrote an illustrated book on 
the subject which brought him fame. Following this, he spent several years in London, 
where he was lionized, and more years travelling and exploring in Central and South 
America, where he gathered material for lectures, books, and cabinets of curiosities. 
“In 1874,” writes the pithy H. W. French in his Art and Artists in Connecticut, “he 
exhibited and sold at auction his entire collection of Indian sketches and relics, and a 
year after, a white-haired, very deaf old man came to the close of his eventful life as a 
lawyer, a soldier, a tourist, an artist, a showman, an explorer, a lecturer and a historian, 
that after all, through its own versatility failed to register in any way proportionate 
with itself.” 

The Metropolitan Museum owns a miniature of a gentle, merry, rosy-cheeked blond 
young man which would appear from the evidence to be a portrait of George Catlin 
(Plate XX XV). A folded paper found inside the frame bears in a middle-Nineteenth 
Century handwriting the inscription: “Painted by John W. Dodge, Miniature Painter 
No. 42 Franklin St., May 21, 1835. Likeness of George Catlin.’’ Catlin would have 
been in his thirty-ninth year in 1835 and furthermore, if our data are correct, he would 
have been away off among the Indian tribes. But since the document seems to be other- 
wise in order we may assume that the portrait of Catlin was painted some years earlier 
than the writing of the paper. 

The workmanship of the miniature is very direct and capable, like the work of an 

60 


New Yor«k Later in THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 


accomplished painter in oils, and one cannot but wonder how so many young men in 
the Age of Innocence became such excellent painters. 

About John Wood Dodge, who painted the miniature in question, we know very 
little. In 1832, he was made an Associate of the National Academy. Ten years later, he 
painted a miniature of Andrew Jackson. His activities during the fifty years which 
followed have not been traced, so far as we know. He lived until 1893, reaching the 
age of eighty-six. 

The life of Nathaniel Rogers was briefer than that of Dodge, and its events have 
been sketched by Dunlap. Rogers came from Bridgehampton near Sag Harbor, Long 
Island, where his father was a farmer. As a partly trained artist, aged twenty-three, he 
arrived in New York in 1811, and Joseph Wood accepted him as a pupil. When Dunlap 
wrote in 1834, Rogers had been profitably practising his profession in New York for 
twenty-three years and was thinking of retiring on the proceeds to his old home on 
Long Island. This he did before many years, and died there in 1844, at fifty-six years 
of age. 

Miniatures by Nathaniel Rogers are fairly plentiful in New York. In drawing they 
always leave something to be desired, and his sitters’ faces are often very nearly ex- 
pressionless. His flesh colour furthermore so often borders on a buff-brown shade that 
it becomes a trying mannerism. The fashionable insistence during an entire generation 
that Mr. Rogers and none other must paint one’s miniature must have arisen from 
other circumstances than the artistic merits of his work. Dunlap liked and admired 
him. Besides being a good provider for his large family, he was a trustee of the public 
schools and of several charitable and moral institutions (See Plate XLII). 

Not long after Nathaniel Rogers withdrew to his home on Long Island, John 
Alexander MacDougall enjoyed several years of popularity as a miniature painter. 
These were the years 1840 to 45, during which time he had a studio on Broadway. 
He had a host of interesting friends and acquaintances and his clients included Henry 
Clay (Plate XX XV), Edgar Allan Poe, Charlotte Cushman, James Kelso, and “‘Com- 
modore” Vanderbilt. He painted very small miniatures, which were careful, sober 
likenesses. 

About the year 1846, MacDougall left New York with all its stimulating people 
and opened a large studio in Newark, New Jersey, where he not only painted minia- 

61 


AMERICAN MINIATURES 


tures but also took portraits by means of the newfangled photographic process. Here 
he is said to have settled down to a comparatively humdrum life, though he continued 
to have interesting friends about him. (See p. 91.) His photographic studio lost money, 
for he was not a man of business, but he seems to have been finical about his painting 
and to have kept up his standards.! 

Ann Hall, the first woman member of the National Academy, came into prom- 
inence as a miniature painter a little earlier than MacDougall. She grew up in Pomfret, 
Connecticut, and her father, Dr. Jonathan Hall, encouraged her childhood passion for 
drawing pictures of the flowers, fishes, birds, and insects which she could find near 
home. Later, her brother sent her from Europe some oil paintings and water colours 
which she at once set about copying. During a visit to Newport, old Samuel King, 
who had once encouraged Malbone and Allston, showed her how to paint on ivory. 
Later still, in New York, she had systematic instruction in oil and miniature painting 
at Alexander Robertson’s academy, but she never lost her early passion for flowers, and 
painted them into her pictures whenever she could. 

After she had finished her training, Miss Hall remained in New York, supporting 
herself by her profession, and her services were in considerable demand. H. W. French 
claims that she sometimes got as much as five hundred dollars for a single group 
miniature. Her draughtsmanship was not her strong point, but her colouring was 
sprightly and original, and she showed a dainty invention in her arrangements. The 
temptation to quote Dunlap’s exceptionally enthusiastic comments is irresistible. 
“Miss Ann Hall stands very prominent among our best painters of miniatures,” and 
again, “Her later portraits in miniature are of the first order. I have seen groups of 
children composed with the taste and skill of a master, and the delicacy which the 
female character can infuse into works of beauty beyond the reach of man—except it 
might be such a man as Malbone, who delighted in female society and caught its 
purity.” Dunlap further refers to a miniature “in which children and flowers combine 
in an elegant and well-arranged bouquet,” and gives high praise to “a group of two 
ladies and a boy combined with flowers.” This last probably refers to the little portrait 
which Miss Hall painted in 1828 of herself with her sister Eliza Hall Ward and Mrs. 


See Walt MacDougall, “This Is the Life,” New York, 1926. 
62 


New York LATverR IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 


Ward’s little boy Henry (Plate XXXIX). It is a dainty and lovable little confec- 
tion. No one but Ann Hall could have painted it, and she could have painted it in no 
age but the one which we are considering. 

Miss Hall lived to be seventy-one years old and died a spinster. At Saratoga, New 
York, in 1840, Edouart cut a quaint silhouette showing her at the age of forty-eight. 
She stands before her easel with her palette and brushes in her hands, a lady of some- 
what severe aspect, but with handsome regular features. 


63 


XII. NINETEENTH CENTURY NEW ENGLAND 


WILLIAMS—STUART—GOODRIDGE*—-ALVAN CLARK—STAIGG 


Arr the activities of the mysterious Joseph Dunkerley in the 1780’s there seems 
to have been a temporary lapse in the production of fine miniatures in Boston. The 
hiatus was closed about 1810 by the art of Henry Williams. A signed miniature by him 
of Henry Burroughs (Plate XLIV) was painted in the year just mentioned. It is the 
portrait of a handsome young man, drawn with delicacy and accuracy. The shadow 
beneath the nose is curiously outlined instead of being expressed by hatching in the 
usual way. The scheme of colour is very restricted, consisting of little besides a smoky 
blue for the background, black for the coat and the drawing of the head, and white, 
somewhat forced up, for the ruffled shirt. A miniature of Edward Coverly owned by 
the Metropolitan Museum of Art shows the same characteristics (Plate XLIV). 

Henry Williams was born in Boston in 1787, the year that Dunkerley painted his 
miniature of Henry Burroughs’s mother. He appears to have had a very comprehensive 
training as an artist, for besides being an excellent miniature painter, he made sil- 
houettes, relief profiles in wax, and portraits in oils and pastels. A delightful and very 
capable example of his work in pastels is the buff and white portrait of Sally Bass at 
the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. It has been attributed to John Johnston, but a pastel 
portrait lately come into the market, which resembles it closely in colour and style, is 
signed “Williams,” and the drawing of it has, moreover, several of the distinctive ear- 
marks which we find in Williams’s miniatures. 

Williams, who died in 1830, had advertised himself as a portrait and miniature 
painter at least as late as 1824. In the meanwhile, a young lady had also entered the 
profession of miniature painting in Boston. Sarah Goodridge was her name. She was 
born in 1788 in the pretty little hill town of Templeton, Worcester County, Massachu- 
setts, and there she grew up. At the age of twenty-five, when she had had some ex- 
perience at teaching a district school and a taste of city life during visits to her married 
sister, Mrs. Thomas Appleton, in Boston, she returned to Templeton and began to 

64 


NINETEENTH Century New ENGLAND 


paint portraits in crayons or water colours at rates that would appeal to her farmer 
neighbours. Before very long, however, she was back in Boston, living with members 
of her family and drilling herself at painting in oils and in miniature. She soon gave up 
oil painting, and as late as 1820, when she was a woman of thirty-two, her miniatures 
were still simple, earnest, and literally countrified performances (See Plate XLVII). 

It must have been around this time that Gilbert Stuart took an interest in her, 
and it is through her that he came to paint his one miniature. The story of this in- 
teresting event is as follows: One day Miss Goodridge was in Stuart’s studio working 
away over a miniature copy after his portrait of General Knox, which happened then 
to be in the room. After watching her groping methods for a while Stuart lost patience 
and, taking up a piece of ivory for the first (and last) time in his life, set about to dem- 
onstrate how a miniature should be painted. He naturally took for his subject the 
one which had been giving Miss Goodridge such a difficult time. The miniature which re- 
sulted is now privately owned in Philadelphia (Plate XLV). It consists merely of a bare 
rectangular piece of ivory with a rapidly painted head placed toward the upper left 
corner and just enough background hatched in to give the head relief. Unmistakably 
the work of a painter in oils, this, one would say, yet as beautiful a piece of miniature 
painting as any in the history of the art in America—quickly and broadly painted, 
with scarcely any colour on the ivory, yet the head in strong relief and marvellously 
subtle in construction. The miniature belonged to Miss Goodridge’s nephew, Edward 
Appleton of Reading, Massachusetts, who died in that town, July 30, 1898, at the 
age of eighty-two. When it was brought to Philadelphia for sale in the year 1897, 
Emily Drayton Taylor, the well-known miniaturist of that city, was struck by its 
beauty and wished to make a copy of it. She received written permission to do so from 
the owner, Mr. Appleton, and she still has in her possession the excellent copy she then 
made. ; 

But as to Sarah Goodridge. Did she profit by the brilliant demonstration she had 
witnessed? Not noticeably, most people would say. Her copy after Stuart’s unique 
miniature is owned by Bowdoin College and it is interesting to compare its laboured 
crudeness with the easy assurance of Stuart’s original. Still, the kindly advice and 
brilliant example of this blunt-spoken and snuff-stained old artist must have had some 
effect. Certain it is that Miss Goodridge’s work between 1820 and 1824 bettered a 

65 


AMERICAN MINIATURES 


great deal, the characterizations of the sitters improving considerably and the high 
lights on the flesh becoming complex and rather tender, as we find them in the portrait 
of Mrs. Benjamin Joy (Plate XLVI). Probably Miss Goodridge’s most delicate and 
finished workmanship is to be found after all in her miniatures of Gilbert Stuart 
himself, for the old man, he was then about seventy, sat to her several times 
(Plate XLVI). 

A New Englander of great natural ability who turned his hand for a few years to 
painting miniatures was Alvan Clark. He was born in 1804, the son of a Massachusetts 
farmer. From 1827 to *36, he was an engraver for calico print factories in Lowell, 
Providence, Fall River, and New York, and thus began his training as an artist. In 
1835, he began to paint miniatures and oil portraits professionally. The following year 
he moved to Boston and received a gratifying patronage. 

Alvan Clark was thus an additional example of that curious but apparently not 
rare phenomenon, the self-taught American artist. His miniatures are painted ably and 
with perfect self-assurance. His portrait of his wife owes the tenderness of its effect 
largely to the delicate flesh tones and the pretty blue dress (Plate XLVII). His por- 
trait of the Honourable Walter Forward (Plate XLVII) is confined to browns and is 
an accomplished and splendidly sturdy piece of characterization. 

When Clark had been about eight years in Boston he became deeply interested in 
lenses and, forgetting his palette and brushes, he established a factory in Cambridge- 
port, where he and his sons are said to have made the first achromatic lenses in this 
country, and all the important American telescopes used in that generation. 

The name of the miniature painter Richard Morrell Staigg is associated especially 
with Newport, Rhode Island, but he worked also in Boston and finally in New York. 
He was an English boy who had been an architect’s assistant before he came to America 
in 1831 at the age of fourteen. He settled in Newport, and there he was encouraged by 
Washington Allston and Jane Stuart to take up miniature painting. He is said to have 
assiduously copied Malbone’s Hours and some of his miniatures, but Staigg’s work is 
technically at the opposite pole from that of Malbone. By 1838, he was actively engaged 
in painting miniatures in Newport. His typical miniature is fairly large in scale with a 
rich prevailing tone of purple and crimson, and a strikingly modern and able handling 
consisting of broad brush strokes flowing easily. He was particularly successful in 

66 


ae as 


Bose’ oe os ses her od ipeeih ts ‘ 
ig AREY eM aa Ae ed ee Oe eke a 


Henry Ciay sy MacDoucaLi 


Mrs. Hucrr—asour 1845—Artist UNKNOWN Miss Sutiy (?)—apsour 1860—Artist UNKNOWN 
Cuartes E. Bercu I spy CatLin 
JostaH Exper sy T. E. Barratt GEORGE CaTLIN By J. W. Doper 


PLATE XXXV 


A Lapy By Henry InmMAN Mrs. Aaron Otmsteap BY DUNLAP 
JOHN GREENE Proup sy JosepH Woop A Man sy JoserpH Woop 


PLATE XXXVI 


NINETEENTH Century New ENGLAND 


catching in his portraiture the easy self-assurance and simple bearing of middle-aged 
sitters of position and refinement, his miniatures of John Inman Linzee and his wife 
(Plate XLVIII) being fine examples of his work. 

Staigg made frequent professional visits to Boston and painted many of the most 
important people of that city, including Dr. James Russell Lowell and his wife, Edward 
Everett, Abbott Lawrence, and David Sears. About 1851 or ’52, he began to spend 
his winters in New York and turned his attention more and more to portraits and small 
genre paintings in oils. A full list of his paintings which belongs to his niece, Mrs. 
George O. G. Coale, mentions only two or three miniatures as having been painted by 
Staigg after 1855, though he continued active as a painter for another twenty years. 


67 


XIII. THE MARCH OF PROGRESS 


Eazy in the Sixteenth Century, before the art of the detached miniature was born, 
the delicate art of illuminating books had already received its death blow. The march 
of progress was its undoing. Following the invention of movable types in the middle 
of the Fifteenth Century, the printing industry spread rapidly over Europe, and books 
from these early presses were almost invariably illustrated by means of the cheap 
wood engraving. The older art did not die at once, however, and fully two generations 
after the printing of Gutenberg’s Bible, illuminated books were still produced, books 
of such marvellous beauty as the Grimani Breviary and the Book of Hours of Hen- 
nessy. Mets 

In the middle of the Nineteenth Century, some four hundred years after the 
invention of printing, the miniature portrait in its turn received a knock-out blow 
as the world continued its ruthless advance. This time it was the marvellous cheapness 
and accuracy of the photograph—not to mention its delightful novelty—which made 
‘he competition of the artist impossible. In 1839, the secrets of Daguerre’s process had 
been published in France, and the introduction of the dry collodion process by Scott 
Archer in 1851 was the beginning of modern rapid processes of photography. The well- 
known daguerreotype of Daniel Webster dates from this year. | 

America, at this time, presents a picture of bustling activity and of deep pre- 
occupation with the material problems of the rapidly developing continent. The aristo- 
cratic heritage of Colonial and early Republican days had given way before an ag- 
gressive democracy. The war with Mexico had brought about a further addition of 
territory, the McCormick reaper, invented in 1834, had simplified large-scale farming, 
steam navigation was well established on the sea as well as on inland waterways, and 
railways had attained a mileage of over ten thousand. 

It was not a propitious time for the arts in America. Romantic gingerbread work | 
had corrupted architecture, and portrait painting was at a comparatively low ebb. 
Among the miniaturists, there were none at work, excepting Staigg, whosecalibre could 

68 


James Bocert, Jr. py Henry Inman J. W. Gaus (?) spy Anson DICKINSON 
James Earte By Ropert Fie vp A Man—Datep 1809—sy Joun W. Jarvis 


PLATE XXXVII 


Toe Marcu or PROGRESS 


be compared with that of the men at the turn of the century, with such men as Robert 
Field, Walter Robertson, Malbone, and Trott. Saunders was probably dead or returned 
to England. Fraser was an old man who had ceased to paint. And now, what with the 
coming of the photograph, Cummings, as we have seen, definitely gave up the exhibit- 
ing, and probably gave up the painting, of miniatures though he continued active as a 
teacher and writer for another fifteen years. Staigg, whose career also was far from run 
to the end, now abandoned miniatures for oil painting. Sarah Goodridge ‘retired to 
Reading, Massachusetts. Only MacDougall in Newark and John Henry Brown in 
Philadelphia continued to paint miniatures, and their work, or, at any rate, that of 
Brown, following the craze of the time, became more and more stupid and photo- 
graphic. 

“Photography has done and is doing much to banish mediocrity in portraiture,” 
wrote Tuckerman’ in 1867, “and it has in a great measure superseded miniature paint- 
ing...” but “mechanical ingenuity and scientific success can never take the place of 
art; for the latter is a product of the soul.” A few such portrait painters as Charles 
Loring Elliott, G. P. A. Healy, and Daniel Huntington did indeed continue to practise 
their art, and were eventually reinforced or else superseded by William Morris Hunt, 
Eastman Johnson, and others of the newer school. But the miniature in the presence of 
the photograph was like a bird before a snake: it was fascinated—even to the fatal 
point of imitation*—and then it was swallowed. It is only within a generation that 
a revival of interest in miniature painting has manifested itself and the public has 
begun to show signs, in this minor field, of tiring of its mechanical and almost exclu- 
sively black-and-white world, its world of books, newspapers, photographs, and 


motion pictures. 


1See Henry T. Tuckerman, Book of the Artists, p. 398. 
2For an interesting example, see Plate XXXYV. 


69 


A BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY 
OF THE ARTISTS 
by 


THEODORE BOLTON 


a Syd 
Ok ac 


A BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY OF THE ARTISTS 
BY 
THEODORE BOLTON 


PA iron: Ezra, b. May 5, 1768, Framingham, Massachusetts; d. February 23, 1836, Albany. 
Portrait painter in oils and miniature. 

Ezra Ames was the youngest son of the six children of Jesse Emes or Ames and Bette 

(Bent) Ames. Jesse Ames was a farmer. While his son Ezra was still a minor, he moved his 
family to a farm at Staatsburg, New York. 
By 1790, Ezra Ames was established as a painter of furniture and coaches. In December 
of the same year he recorded, in his memorandum book covering the years 1790 to 1802 and 
now owned by the New York Historical Society, his first commissions as an artist. These were 
two miniatures for which he received eighteen shillings each. In 1793 and 1794 he visited Albany 
and Staatsburg “‘several times.” On October 6th of the latter year he married Zipporah Wood 
at Uxbridge, Massachusetts. He apparently made his home at Worcester until early in 1795, 
when he settled in Albany. 

From the entries in his memorandum book, his livelihood was earned from his work as 
miniaturist, carriage and coach painter, frame gilder, plate letterer, and silver engraver. He 
records the painting of about twenty-five miniatures between 1794 and 1798 noting the names 
of the purchasers, but none of these has been identified to-day. 

His first recorded work as a portrait painter in oils is his portrait of a Mr. Glen, for which 
he received four pounds in February, 1794. He painted his well-known, full-length portrait of 
Governor Clinton for the State of New York in 1813. He also painted a bust portrait of Gover- 
nor Clinton which was engraved by Maverick. 

The Albany Institute owns several of his portraits in oil as well as six miniatures. 

Of his four children, one, Julius R. Ames, who was born January 1, 1801, is listed in the 
Albany directories as a miniature painter during 1834 to 1850. 

See Dorothy C. Barck, “Ezra Ames, Painter,” in New York Historical Society Quarterly 
Bulletin, January, 1927; W. Dunlap, History of the Arts of Design, New York, 1834, J. 
Windsor, Narrative and Critical History of America, Boston, 1885, Vol. VI, for information 
as to the Clinton Portraits; C. W. Bowen, Centennial Celebration of the Inauguration of 
George Washington, New York, 1892; D. M. Stauffer, American Engravers upon Copper 
and Steel, New York, 1907; T. Bolton, Early American Portrait Painters in Miniature, 
New York, 1921. 

13 


AMERICAN MINIATURES 


Bassas, Henry, b. May 20, 1744, Philadelphia; d. there February, 1812. Portrait painter 
in oils and miniature. 

Henry Benbridge was sent to Italy by his stepfather, Thomas Gordon, who was a well-to- 
do man. He studied at Rome under Mengs and Battoni. At the age of twenty-four he painted 
for James Boswell, a portrait of General Paoli which was exhibited in London, An engraving 
of this portrait published in London in 1769 gives the artist’s name at the bottom as “Bem- 
bridge,” an error that has been frequently repeated. In 1769, Benbridge studied in London, 
under West. A portrait he painted of Benjamin Franklin in 1770 and exhibited at the Royal 
Academy is now lost. The same year he returned to America and lived in Philadelphia. In 
1773, he went to live in Charleston, South Carolina, frequently visiting Philadelphia. Some of 
the portraits he painted in Charleston are mistakenly attributed to Copley. Benbridge was in 
Norfolk about 1800. 

See Articles by W. Roberts and C. H. Hart, Art in America, February and June, 1918. 


Bircu, Witi1AM Russe x1, b. April 9,1755, Warwick, England; d. August 7, 1834, Philadelphia. 
Etcher, engraver, and miniature painter in enamel. 

Nothing is known of the early life of William Birch. In 1781 and 1782 he exhibited forty- 
one miniatures at the exhibition of the Royal Academy. He was employed by Sir Joshua Rey- 
nolds to make copies of his portraits in enamel. In 1785 he received a medal for excellence in 
his art from the Society of Arts. In 1791 he published his engravings after views by Wilson, 
Rowlandson, and other artists, which he called “Délices de la Grand Bretagne.” In 1794 he 
came to the United States, settling in Philadelphia. Here he built himself a furnace and estab- 
lished his reputation as a miniature painter in enamel and as an engraver. He made about 
sixty enamel copies of Gilbert Stuart’s portrait of George Washington besides his own original 
work. His two volumes of engravings of the drawings of scenes in Philadelphia are eagerly 
sought after by collectors. Extracts from his unpublished autobiography are printed in Anne 
H. Wharton’s Salons Colonial and Republican. 

See also Dictionary of National Biography, London, 1886; T. Bolton, Early American 
Portrait Painters in Miniature, New York, 1921; W. Dunlap, History of the Arts of Design 
in the United States, New York, 1834; D. M. Stauffer, American Engravers wpon Copper 
and Steel, New York, 1907. 


74 


A Man sy InMAN A Lapy sy Inman 
A Lapy By INMAN 


PLATE XXXVIII 


Tue Artist with Her Sister AND NepHew py ANN Hau 


Mrs. ALEXANDER HAMILTON By INMAN 


PLATE XXXIX 


SS 


JANE Cook Cummines By THOMAS SEIR CUMMINGS 


PLATE XL 


Benson J. Losstnc By CUMMINGS 


A Lavy or tHe Hancock Famity—asout 1840—sy JoHn Carin ( 


PLATE XLI 


8) 


r) 


a. ee ee 


A BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY OF THE ARTISTS 


ric: Grorce, b. June 26, 1796, Wilkesbarre, Pennsylvania; d. December 23, 1872, Jersey 
City, New Jersey. Author and portrait painter in oils and miniature. 

George Catlin studied law at Litchfield, Connecticut, and practised his profession in 
Philadelphia, but after a few years he gave up his law practice and devoted his time to painting. 
From 1832 to 1840, he travelled in the Yellowstone River region, Indian Territory, Arkansas, 
and Florida, painting the series of pictures of Indian life for which he is famous. Most of the 
470 portraits of Indians that he painted in addition to the scenes of Indian manners and 
customs are now at the United States National Museum. The results of his travels he published 
in his well-known Manners, Customs, and Condition of the North American Indians, London, 
1841. In 1852-1857 he travelled in South and Central America. From 1857 to 1871 he lived in 


Europe. 


CuarK, Atvan, b. March 8, 1804, Ashfield, Massachusetts; d. August 19, 1887, Cambridge, 
Massachusetts. Optician and portrait painter in oils and miniature. 

Alvan Clark was the son of a farmer. He left his native town as a young man and went to 
Lowell, where he became an engraver for a calico printing works. From 1827 until 1836, he 
followed this branch of engraving in Providence, Fall River, and New York. The latter year, he 
settled in Boston, where he became a successful portrait painter in oils and miniature. His 
miniatures were all painted after 1835. About 1844, he began to manufacture telescopes. With 
the assistance of his sons, he established a factory at Cambridge called Alvan Clark and Sons. 
He made the first achromatic lenses in the United States. His son Alvan Graham Clark became 
a prominent astronomer. 

See Royal Astronomical Society, Proceedings, Vol. XVII, No. 9; Appleton’s Cyclopedia 
of American Biography; T. Bolton, Early American Portrait Painters in Miniature, New 


York, 1921. 


Corey, Jonn SINGLETON, b. July 3, 1737, Boston; d. September 9, 1815, London. Historical, 
portrait, and miniature painter. 

John Singleton Copley was the son of Richard Copley of Limerick, Ireland, and Mary 
Singleton of County Clare. Both parents were of English descent. The Copleys came to Boston 
in 1736. Richard Copley, who was a tobacconist, died at sea on a voyage to the West Indies 
shortly after the birth of his son. In 1748, according to the records of Trinity Church, Boston, 
Mrs. Copley married Peter Pelham, an artist. Young Copley was probably taught drawing by 
his stepfather, who died, however, when Copley was fourteen years old. At fifteen he had al- 
ready painted his first portrait. His success, which came early, was such that Trumbull wrote in 


75 


AMERICAN MINIATURES 


1772, of his amazement at the style in which he lived. In 1766, Copley sent the portrait of his 
half-brother, Henry Pelham, known as The Boy with the Squirrel, to the Exhibition at Somerset 
House, London. He was elected Fellow of the Society of Artists the same year. In 1769 he mar- 
ried Susannah Clarke. From June to December, 1771 he painted portraits in New York making 
a short visit to Philadelphia the latter part of September. In 1773, to use his own words, he 
“expostulated with the Sons of Liberty against their proceedings’’ when they compelled his 
father-in-law, Richard Clarke, who owned the famous consignment of tea destroyed by the 
Boston Tea Party, to flee for his life. In June, 1774, he sailed for Europe never to return. By 
July he was in London. But he did not stay long and immediately began a tour of the Continent. 
In August, he was in Normandy. In September, he was in Paris, leaving on the 9th for the tour 
south with a travelling companion named Carter who has left a journal, long portions of which 
are quoted by Allan Cunningham in his Lives of the Most Eminent British Painters and Sculptors. 
Travelling by way of Lyons, Marseilles, and Genoa, they reached Rome in October where the 
travelling companions parted company after constant bickerings. On June 4, 1775, Copley left 
Rome for Parma, stopping at Florence and Bologna. At Parma he stayed long enough to copy 
a painting by Correggio. It was at this time that he wrote his half-brother, Henry Pelham, to 
resist conscription into the Colonial Army by force if necessary, adjuring him “for God Sake, 
don’t think this a Triffling matter.” 

By the latter end of the year 1775, Copley was settled in London at 25 George Street, 
where he remained the rest of his life and where his son, the future Lord Lyndhurst and thrice 
Lord Chancellor of England, continued to live after his father’s death. In 1779, Copley was 
elected a member of the Royal Academy, but his election was not sanctioned by the King until 
1783. The following are titles of some of Copley’s historical compositions: Watson and the 
Shark; The Death of Major Pierson; The Death of Chatham; and Charles II Demanding the 
Surrender of the Five Members. 

See A. T. Perkins, Sketch of the Life and a List of Some of the Works of John Singleton 
Copley, Boston, 1873; M. B. Amory, Domestic and Artistic Life of Copley, Boston, 1882; 
Masters in Art, “Copley,” Boston, 1964— illustrated; Massachusetts Historical Society 
Collections, 1914, Letters and Papers of Henry Pelham and John Singleton Copley, 1739- 
1776; F. W.*Bayley, Life of J. S. Copley, Boston, 1915. 


Comanes, THomas Sztr, b. August 26, 1804, Bath, England; d. September 24, 1894, Hacken- 
sack, New Jersey. Miniature painter. 

William Dunlap’s account of Thomas Seir Cummings is, in part, as follows: “He is the 
only child of Charles and Rebecca Cummings. Shortly after Thomas’ birth his father removed 
to Bristol, and from thence came to America, when our subject was yet in early childhood. ... 


76 


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A BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY OF THE ARTISTS 


When he was about fourteen years of age Augustus Earl, the traveller and painter, came to 
New York, and took part of the house (as an office) occupied by the father of Mr. Cummings. 
Karl saw the boy’s drawings and encouraged him to proceed. His father placed him at the draw- 
ing school of J. R. Smith, and in 1821 he was received as a pupil by Henry Inman, who had but 
recently left the guidance (as an artist) of Jarvis. During three years’ study with so excellent 
a master as Inman, Mr. Cummings became a painter in oil and water colours (or miniature), 
but preferred, and of course succeeded best in the latter, which he had made peculiarly his 
study. At the end of three years the teacher and pupil entered into a partnership, which con- 
tinued three years, and a friendship was founded which is unbroken.” 

The partnership mentioned above was called Inman and Cummings, and upon its dissolu- 
tion in 1827, Inman retired from the field of professional miniature painting in favour of the 
junior partner. The miniatures of Cummings were so ably painted that he found constant em- 
ployment, and by 1822 felt independent enough to marry. His wife, who was an English girl 
named Jane Cook, bore him fourteen children. 

Cummings also studied at the American Academy while John Trumbull was the president. 
Dunlap states: “In the year 1824-25, the American Academy again invited students to draw 
from casts, provided they came between the hours of six and nine, a. M.... There was no keeper 
or instructor...”’ and Cummings and Frederick Agate were often refused admittance. Dunlap, 
seeing them turned off upon one occasion, was discussing the matter with a director when John 
Trumbull came into the room. The director mentioned the matter of the disappointment of 
Cummings and Agate, and Trumbull replied, “They must remember that beggars are not to be 
choosers.” This situation led S. F. B. Morse, Cummings, and others to form another academy 
called the New York Drawing Association, which, in January, 1826, became the National 
Academy of Design. Cummings was treasurer of the National Academy from 1827 to 1865, 
vice president from 1850 to 1859, and chairman of the committee that erected the first building 
of the Academy. 

In 1831, he was elected by the National Academy to a professorship in drawing, and when 
Winslow Homer first came to New York, in 1861, it was in the class of Thomas S. Cummings 
that he studied. The Lyceum of Natural History, the New York Gallery of Fine Arts, the 
American and Mechanics Institute, the Century Club, of which he was one of the founders and 
first treasurer, and the Old Sketch Club all owed much to his energy. The University of New 
York City also elected Mr. Cummings Professor of the Arts of Design, to fill the chair left 
vacant by the retirement of Professor Morse. At the same time Professor Cummings established 
his own successful School of Design. 

In 1865, were published Cummings’s Historic Annals of the National Academy of Design, 
which rank with William Dunlap’s History in importance as a source book of information con- 


V7 


AMERICAN MINIATURES 


cerning the early American artists. The year after the publication of this work, he moved to a 
farm near Mansfield, Connecticut, finally settling in Hackensack in 1889. His son, Thomas 
Augustus Cummings, also was an artist. 

See H. W. French, Art and Artists in Connecticut, Boston, 1879; W. Dunlap, History of 
the Arts of Design, New York, 1834; H. T. Tuckerman, Book of the Artists, New York, 
1867; T. Bolton, Early American Portrait Painters in Miniature, New York, 1921; T. S. 
Cummings, Historic Annals of the National Academy of Design, Philadelphia, 1865. 


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A BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY OF THE ARTISTS 


ce TscoN: Anson, b. April 19, 1779, Milton, Litchfield County, Connecticut; d. there March 
7, 1852. Portrait painter in miniature and oils. 

Anson |Dickinson was the son of Oliver Dickinson, Junior, who was born in 1757 and died 
in 1847. Oliver Dickinson painted a few portraits in oils, and two of his ten children, Anson 
Dickinson and Daniel Dickinson, inherited his artistic ability. 

Starting life as a silversmith, Anson Dickinson turned finally to painting as a career and 
began painting miniatures about 1804. It is highly probable that he received some instruction 
in the art from Malbone. At all events he sat to Malbone for his portrait in 1804, and, during 
the sitting, according to a story that has been handed down, the funeral procession of Alexander 
Hamilton was passing by in the street below; but Malbone was so absorbed in his work that he 
would not allow Dickinson to get up and look out of the window at the scene. From 1805 to 
1810, Dickinson was in Albany, and by 1811, he was back in New York. In 1818, he visited 
Canada. After 1840, he lived in New Haven and Hartford. 

See T. Bolton, Early American Portrait Painters in Miniature, New York, 1921; H. W. 

French, Art and Artists in Connecticut, Boston, 1879; A. T. Gesner, The Dickinson Family, 

1913; W. Dunlap, History of the Arts of Design, New York, 1834. 


Dopce, Jonn Woop, b. November 4, 1807, New York City; d. December 16, 1893. Min- 
iature painter. 

Dunlap writes: ‘‘ With the common propensity of boys for making pictures, he bound him- 
self apprentice to a sign painter at the age of seventeen, who was to instruct him in drawing, 
but was incapable. Young Dodge, however, instructed himself; and, borrowing a miniature 
from a friend, succeeded so well in copying it that he attempted painting from the life, and, as 
soon as free from his apprenticeship, he commenced miniature painting. He has succeeded by 
making nature his instructor, and now stands among the prominent professors of the art in 
New York.”’ The miniature, of General Andrew Jackson by Dodge, painted from life in 1842, 
is the original from which the postage stamp of 1863 was engraved. Dodge also painted a por- 
trait of Henry Clay in 1843. He was elected an Associate Member of the National Academy of 
Design in 1832. 


DUNKERLEY, JosEpH. Flourished 1784-87, Boston. Miniature painter. 

Two notices in the Independent Chronicle of Boston for December, 1784, and February 17, 
1785, were inserted by Joseph Dunkerley. In the first, he notes that he “still carries on his 
Profession of Painting in Miniature at his home in the North Square.” In the second, he notes 
that he and John Hazlitt, the portrait painter who was the brother of William Hazlitt the essay- 

79 


AMERICAN MINIATURES 


ist, are going to start a drawing school “as soon as a sufficient number of scholars apply. N. B. 
Miniature Pictures executed in the neatest manner.” The date of Dunkerley’s activity is 
extended at least to 1787, which is the date of the miniature he painted of Mary Burroughs. 


Dunuap, Wiuu1aM, b. February 19, 1766, Perth Amboy, New Jersey; d. September 28, 1839, 
New York City. Dramatist, art historian, and portrait painter in oils and miniature. 

William Dunlap vacillated between writing and painting almost all his life. Although he 
was the first important native American dramatist, his chief claim to fame is his History of the 
Rise and Progress af the Arts of Design in the United States, published in 1834. He knew many of 
the artists personally and corresponded with them directly for his information; so that what 
Vasari was to the Italian artists William Dunlap was to the American artists. In fact, “The 
American Vasari” is the title of an illuminating paper on William Dunlap by Theodore S. 
Woolsey published in the Yale Review for July, 1914. 

As early as 1783, Dunlap made a portrait in crayons of George Washington. The next year 
he went to London with a letter to Benjamin West. He was a dilatory student spending but a 
brief period with West and an extended period wandering aimlessly about England. However, 
upon his return to America, he painted portraits successfully in New York City. From 1789 to 
1805, he abandoned painting, entered civic affairs, became a merchant, and finally took to 
writing plays. His best play, The Father of American Shandyism, was produced in 1789. In 1798, 
he became the manager of the Park Theatre, where his play André was produced the same year. 
His enterprise contributed greatly to the development of the drama in the United States. Be- 
sides producing, he wrote or adapted more than sixty plays. His last play, A Trip to Niagara, 
was performed November, 1828, and published in 1830. 

Failure and bankruptcy in 1805 had forced him to resume painting as a profession. In 1812, 
he had painted miniatures in New Haven without giving much satisfaction and told Gilbert 
Stuart about it shortly after. Stuart is said to have remarked: “Friend Dunlap, it appears to 
me the good people of New Haven may have had some cause.” After 1821, he gained a reputa- 
tion throughout the country by exhibiting large religious paintings and charging admission fees. 
Of these compositions his Death on the Pale Horse and Christ Rejected are the most famous. 
In 1830, he settled permanently in New York City. He was one of the founders of the National 
Academy of Design and its vice president from 1831 to 1838. The loss of one eye early in life 
handicapped Dunlap’s work as an artist. Forty-eight of Dunlap’s miniatures are listed in 
Early American Portrait Painters in Miniature. 

Dunlap’s History of the Rise and Progress of the Arts of Design in the United States was re- 
printed at Boston, in 1918, by Bayley and Goodspeed, who expanded the original work of two 
volumes to three. The new edition gives an exhaustive bibliography upon the subject of early 


80 


eS 


Other ai by Dunlap are a History of the American Theatre, 1832; George Frederick Cook, 
- 1813; and Charles Brockden Brown, 1815. 


See also, Oral S. Coad, William Dunlap, New York, 1917. 


AMERICAN MINIATURES 


les JEAN PrerRE HENRI, b. January 20, 1755, Caen, France; d. there, December 23, 1840. 
Portrait painter in oils and miniature. 

The name Elouis is a Gallicized version of the German name von Ludwig. Jean Pierre 
Henri Elouis, or as he called himself in America, Henry Elouis, studied art under Restout in 
Paris and at the Royal Academy in London where he went in 1783. He exhibited at the Royal 
Academy in 1785, 1786, and 1787. At about the time of the outbreak of the French Revolution, 
he sailed for the United States, settling in Baltimore. In 1791, he was in Annapolis where 
Charles Willson Peale saw him and wrote: “he paints in a new stile,’’ and wondered “‘if this 
gentleman so cried up will do better than Mr. Pine, whose reputation was equally cried up.” 
In 1792, he settled in Philadelphia where he remained until 1799. During his life in that city 
he gave drawing lessons to Eleanor Custis, and Hart states (without giving his reasons) that he 
painted miniatures of George and Martha Washington. About 1799 to 1804 he travelled with 
von Humboldt in Mexico and South America. He returned to France in 1807. He exhibited 
portraits in oil at the Paris Salon from 1810 to 1819. In 1814 he was made curator of the Mu- 
seum at Caen. 

See Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 1911. 


$2 


Mrs. Gasrie, MaANnIGAULT By ROGERS 


A Lapy sy Rogmrs Epwarp ARMSTRONG BY RoGERS 


PLATE XLII 


Jesse HAWLEY By Ezra AMES 
A Lapy—asout 1840—Artist UNKNowN Potty Vincent sy James R. Lamppin 


PLATE XLIII 


A Brograpuicau DicTIONARY OF THE ARTISTS 


EF IELD, Rosert, b. about 1770 (?), Gloucester, England; d. August 9, 1819, Jamaica, West 
Indies. Portrait painter in miniature and oils. 

Nothing is known of the life of Robert Field before he came to the United States except 
the fact that he was born in Gloucester. He sailed for Baltimore on the ship Republic in April, 
1794, painting the Captain’s portrait in miniature at sea. The same year he was both in New 
York and in Philadelphia. 

He almost immediately engraved a portrait of George Washington, painted by Walter 
Robertson, an Irish miniature painter who accompanied Gilbert Stuart to America. This en- 
graving, which has an ornate design running about it engraved by Barralet, is inscribed as 
being “Published by Walter Robertson, Philadelphia & New York Ist August 1795.” The same 
year he was in Baltimore, where Thomas Twining, in his Travels in America One Hundred Years 
Ago, notes sitting to Field for his miniature. He also made an engraving of the Chandos Por- 
trait of Shakespeare for the first American edition of Shakespeare’s works, published in Phila- 
delphia. His portrait in oils of Charles Carroll, which was engraved by Longacre, may be 
assigned to this period. John Pintard notes, in his journal for July 1, 1801, that Field was in 
Washington City and painted miniature portraits of Washington for fifty dollars apiece. Rem- 
brandt Peale, in a letter quoted in full by E. B. Johnston in her Original Portraits of Washing- 
ton, tells an entertaining story of his friend Robert Field and explains that “Field was an 
Englishman, painted in a beautiful style and commanded good prices.” 

In 1805, Field moved to Boston and frequented the gatherings at the home of Andrew 
Allen, the British Consul. He was constantly occupied. Charles Fraser notes his meeting with 
Field in the latter part of the year 1806 in a letter as follows: “There is a miniature painter 
there named Field, who associates with the first circles: He is a fine artist. I received many at- 
tentions from him.”! While he was in Boston, Field published two engravings, one in 1806, 
after Trumbull’s portrait of Hamilton, and another in 1807 , after Stuart’s portrait of Jefferson. 

About May, 1808, Field sailed for Halifax, Nova Scotia, acting upon the advice of Sir John 
Wentworth. In the Halifax Royal Gazette for June of that year he advertised: “Robert Field at 
Alexander Morrison’s, book seller, intends, during his residence in Halifax, to exercise his pro- 
fession as portrait painter in oil and water colour, and in miniature, where specimens of his 
painting may be seen and his terms made known.” Whereas Field worked largely in miniature 
in the United States, his work in Nova Scotia is mainly in oils. Among the first of his portraits 
in Halifax were portraits of members of the Rockingham Club which were later hung upon 
the walls of the Rockingham Inn, where the Club had rooms. He painted a portrait of Governor 


1See Charles Fraser, by A. R. H. Smith and D. E. H. Smith. 
83 


AMERICAN MINIATURES 


General Sir John Cope Sherbrooke for the Government House in Halifax, which he also en- 
graved and published in 1816. Other portraits of this period are of Sir George Prevost, William 
Bowie, Dr. John Haliburton, and Bishop Inglis. The last named is now in London at the Na- 
tional Portrait Gallery. Mr. Harry Piers, of Halifax, notes in his paper on “Artists of Nova 
Scotia,” Nova Scotia Historical Society Collections, Vol. XVIII, that, “tradition in Halifax states 
that he was somewhat of a dandy and wore Hessian boots, with tassels at the tops.’ William 
Dunlap, who knew him, described h'm as follows: “He was a handsome, stout, gentlemanly 
man, and a favourite with gentlemen.” He did not, as Rembrandt Peale wrote, go into the 
ministry. mick iaih tes kat Se 
He exhibited in London during 1818, and is listed as a portrait painter of Halifax. In the 
Nova Scotia Royal Gazette September 15, 1819, his death is recorded as follows: “Died at 
Jamaica August 9th, Robert Field, Esq., an Eminent Artist very much regretted.” 
See, Harry Piers, Robert Field, Portrait Painter, New York, 1927, which contains a full 
bibliography. 


Fraser, Cuarues, b. August 20, 1782, Charleston, S. C.; d. there October 15, 1860. Portrait 
painter in miniature and oils. , 

Charles Fraser was born at Charleston in 1782, the youngest of fourteen children. His 
father, Alexander Fraser, was the son of a Scotsman who settled in South Carolina about the 
year 1700. Mary Grimke, his mother, was of German descent. The Fraser family genealogy is 
traced in the South Carolina Historical Magazine, Vol. V. : 

Charles Fraser had only just started school when his father died in 1791. Concerning his 
youthful days he wrote: “I date my earliest recollections of Charleston from about the year 
1792; at which time it was completely surrounded with remains of its old revolutionary fortifi- 
cations. . . . 1 was at this time a pupil in the Charleston College, which was kept in one of the 
old brick barracks.” Miniatures and small water-colour paintings signed by Fraser date as 
early as this period. The next year he had as a school friend an English boy who later became . 
one of the eminent American portrait painters. This was Thomas Sully, who later recorded his 
indebtedness to Fraser’s instruction in art at this early period as follows: “His kindness and 
the progress made in consequence of it, determined the course of my future life.” Two excellent 
water-colour sketches by Fraser, dated 1796, are reproduced in A. R. H. and D. E. H. Smith’s 
Dwelling Houses of Charleston. Yet, in spite of these and other strong signs of his early artistic 
inclination, Charles Fraser’s guardians trained him to be a lawyer. “This unfortunate error,” 
he wrote years later in a letter printed by Dunlap, “by which the destiny of my life was directed 
or rather mis-directed, will ever be, as it has always been, a source of regret to me.” He left 
college and entered a lawyer’s office in 1798. 

He read law assiduously for the next three years, but found time to draw during his scant 

84 


A BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY OF THE ARTISTS 


leisure. He must have met Edward Greene Malbone in or before the year 1800, since Washing- 
ton Allston wrote: “On quitting college I returned to Charleston, where I had the pleasure to 
meet Malbone, and another friend and artist, Charles Fraser, who, by the bye, now paints an 
admirable miniature.” In May, 1801, Allston and Malbone sailed for England to further their 
art studies under Benjamin West. Encouraged by their example, Fraser attempted the pro- 
fessional career of an artist. But at the end of three years he became so discouraged that he 
returned to the study of law, entering the office of John Julius Pringle, the Attorney General of 
the state. 

He saw Malbone again upon that artist’s last visit to Charleston from January to June, 
1806. He saw him for the last time in the late summer of the same year at N ewport. This was 
during an extended tour Fraser made of various Northern cities. In a letter dated September 
5th, he tells of meeting Gilbert Stuart and Robert Field at Boston. He speaks in the same letter 
of excursions to Portsmouth, Salem, and Newburyport, and to New York City, where he called 
on John Trumbull. He also visited Philadelphia. 

His trip to the North came at the end of his long course of legal studies. “He was ad- 
mitted to the Bar! on the 19th of February, 1807, in the City of Charleston. . . . His master 
in the law, full of years and honours, began, about this time, to wind up his affairs at the Bar, 
and soon returned from the Attorney-Generalship. He well knew Mr. Fraser’s integrity and 
ability; to him he entrusted much of his unfinished legal business, recommended him to his 
clients, and by his countenance and commendation, promoted the progress of his young friend.” 
In the fall of 1810, Fraser helped to found the Conversation Club. For this Club he wrote his 
admirable “Remininscences of Charleston,” which were published as a book in 1854. 

In 1816 he again went on a visit to the North. After a stay at Stafford Springs, he made his 
headquarters in New York. In his letters he tells of excursions to Staten Island and Long 
Island. He was elected a trustee of the College of Charleston in 1817, and soon after he was 
appointed treasurer of the board of trustees. On the Fourth of July, 1818, he made an oration 
before the Cincinnati and Revolutionary Society. In the same year, having put by enough 
through eleven years’ practice as a lawyer, he commenced painting professionally in miniature. 
His first commission was a portrait of Nathaniel Russell. 

A letter written February 4, 1819, by S. F. B. Morse, and printed in The Letters and 
Journals of S. F. B. Morse, notes that “Mr. Fraser, Mr. Cogdell, Mr. Fisher of Boston, and 
myself meet here of an evening to improve ourselves”—drawing from a small collection of 
casts. In this year the Charleston Directory gives Fraser as an attorney-at-law with an office 
on Tradd Street, and although he abandoned law in 1818, Fraser is called an attorney-at-law in 
the city directory as late as 1831. In 1837-38 the directory finally gives his occupation as a 


1See John Belton O’Neall, Bench and Bar of South Carolina, 1859. 
85 


AMERICAN MINIATURES 


“portrait painter” at 93 Tradd Street. Fraser was one of the directors of the short-lived South 
Carolina Academy of Fine Arts, established in 1821. In 1824, he revisited Boston and again 
saw Gilbert Stuart, who was an admirer of Fraser’s work. During Lafayette’s visit to Charles- 
ton in 1825, Fraser was chosen by the city to paint his portrait in miniature, and a portrait of 
Francis K. Huger, which was presented to Lafayette as a memento of the episode at Olmutz. 
During the summer of 1831 Fraser visited Hartford, Connecticut, according to Dunlap, 
and painted miniatures there. He extended his visit to Boston and saw Allston at Cambridge- 
port. In a letter by Allston to Cogdell, dated Cambridgeport, October 9, 1833, the writer states, 
“T have had a pleasant visit from Fraser; he brought with him several landscapes that do him 
honor.” Admiration for the man and appreciation of his art led a number of prominent citizens 
to form an exhibition of Fraser’s work in February, 1857, and the catalogue lists three hundred 
and thirteer miniatures and one hundred and thirty-nine oil paintings and sketches. 
See W. Dunlap, History of the Arts of Design in the United States, New York, 1834; 
A. H. Wharton, Heirlooms in Miniatures, Philadelphia, 1898; Art in America, Vol. ITI, June, 
1915: A. R. Huger Smith, “Charles Fraser, the Friend and Contemporary of Malbone”’; 
A. R. Huger Smith and D. E. Huger Smith, Charles Fraser, New York, 1924, well illus- 
trated; T. Bolton: Early American Portrait Painters in Miniature, New York, 1921, 
containing a check list of 337 miniatures by Fraser; C. Fraser, Reminiscences of Charleston, 
1854; Exhibition Catalogue of Miniature Portraits “accompanied by a life of the artist.” 
(Fraser) Charleston, South Carolina, 1857. 


Freeman, Grorcs, b. April 21, 1789, Spring Hill, Connecticut; d. March 7, 1868, Hartford, 
Connecticut. Miniature painter on porcelain and ivory. 

George Freeman, the son of a farmer who could not afford to give him proper training in 
art, was self-taught. However, he painted miniatures well enough to adopt the art as a profes- 
sion. Among the earlier miniatures he painted are those of Mrs. Sigourney and several painted 
about 1810, which were, in 1879, in the possession of Mrs. H. B. Beach of Hartford, according 
to H. W. French. In 1813, he went to Europe, where he studied in Paris and London and also 
painted miniatures professionally. He lived for many years in London, where his work was in 
great demand and where he painted miniatures of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. 

Twenty-four years after leaving his native land, he “returned without warning,” notes 
H. W. French, “and took dinner with his father, telling him he had met his son in London, 
without being recognized.” 

He painted many miniatures in Philadelphia, where among his sitters were Nicholas 
Biddle (1838), Mrs. Edward Biddle, and Dorothy Francis Willing. He also painted a miniature 
portrait of President Tyler. 

1See Dunlap’s History. 
86 


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A BroGRaPHIcAL DICTIONARY OF THE ARTISTS 


His miniatures are generally rectangular, and his signature, when he used it, was: “G. 
Freeman.” 
See T. Bolton, Early American Portrait Painters in Miniature, New York, 1921; H. W.. 
French, Art and Artists in Connecticut, Boston, 1879; A. H. Wharton, Heirlooms in Minia- 
tures, Philadelphia, 1898. 


Fuuton, Rosert, b. November 14, 1765, Little Britain, Pennsylvania; d. February 23, 1815, 
New York City. Inventor and artist. 

The father of Robert Fulton came from Kilkenny, Ireland, sometime before 1735. From 
1782 to 1785 Robert Fulton painted landscapes in Philadelphia. In 1785, he is listed in the 
Philadelphia directory as a miniature painter. The next year he sailed for London and studied 
with Benjamin West. From 1791 to 1793, he exhibited at the Royal Academy and the Society 
of Artists. 

Late in 1806, he returned to America after twenty years’ absence. On August 11, 1807, 
the first successful steamboat, the Clermont, which he designed, went up the Hudson River 
from New York to Albany in thirty-two hours. 

See A. C. Sutcliffe: Robert Fulton, 1909; H. W. Dickinson, Robert F. ulton, Engineer and 

Artist, 1913. 


87 


AMERICAN MINIATURES 


Gyan Saran, b. February 5, 1788, Templeton, Massachusetts; d. December 28, 1853, 
Boston. Miniature painter. 

Sarah Goodridge, or Goodrich as the name is sometimes spelled, was the sixth child of 
Ebenezer Goodridge and Beulah Childs. She stayed alternately with her brother or her father 
until she was seventeen. Then she taught a district school for two summers. After that, she 
went to Boston and lived with her sister Mrs. Thomas Appleton, until she was twenty-four. In 
the summer of 1812, she began her professional life as an artist at Templeton, where she made 
portraits in coloured crayons for fifty cents and in water colours for a dollar and a half. She re- 
turned to Boston in the autumn. Gilbert Stuart took an interest in her and sat to her several 
times. She visited Washington in 1828-29 and in 1841-42. In 1851, she bought a home in Read- 
ing, Massachusetts, and moved there with the Appletons. In 1853, while on a Christmas visit 
to Boston, she had an attack of paralysis and died three days later. 

See A. C. Mason, Life and Works of Gilbert Stuart, 1879. 


Pas Ann, b. May, 1792, Pomfret, Connecticut; d. 1863, New York City. Miniature painter. 

Ann Hall was the third daughter of Jonathan Hall of Pomfret. When she was very young, 
she received some slight instruction in miniature painting from Samuel King during a visit to 
Newport. William Dunlap, who gives an extended account of Ann Hall, quotes from a letter 
that she “received instruction in oil painting from Mr. Alexander Robertson, at that time and 
still an excellent teacher of painting. She painted some pleasing pictures in oil, but eventually 
relinquished it to devote herself more exclusively to miniature painting.” 

She became very proficient in her art and was finally elected the first woman member of 
the National Academy, to whose exhibitions she sent miniatures from 1845 to 1849. 

See W. Dunlap, History of the Arts of Design in the United States, New York, 1834; 
T. S. Cummings, Historic Annals of the National Academy, Philadelphia, 1865; T. Bolton, 
Early American Portrait Painters in Miniature, New York, 1921. 


88 


A BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY OF THE ARTISTS 


I NMAN, Henry, b. October 28, 1801, Utica, New York; d. January 17, 1846, New York City. 
Portrait painter in oils and miniature. 

Henry Inman, who moved to New York with his parents about 1812, became the ap- 
prentice to John Wesley Jarvis in 1814. Together the master and apprentice frequently visited 
the Southern cities during the winter. In 1822, they visited Boston. Being now emancipated 
from his apprenticeship, Inman married a Miss O’Brian and remained in New York for the 
next ten years, his studio being on Vesey Street. He was the vice president of the National 
Academy from 1826 to 1831, moving in the latter year or in 1832 to Philadelphia and shortly 
thereafter to Mount Holley, New Jersey, where he bought a farm. Because of lack of em- 
ployment, he was soon forced to return to Philadelphia. There he was constantly occupied with 
portrait painting and also as partner in the lithographic firm of Inman and Childs until 1835, in 
which year he returned to New York. In 1838, he was again elected vice president of the Na- 
tional Academy, and was reélected annually until a year before his death. In 1843, his health 
being broken, his friends James Lenox, Edward L. Cary, and Henry Reed commissioned por- 
traits from him of Chalmers, Macaulay, and Wordsworth, so that he could go to England and 
have the advantage of a sea trip. After completing these commissions, he returned to New 
York, arriving in April, 1845. In an entry under December 9, 1846, T. S. Cummings, in his 
Historic Annals, describes a visit of the Academicians to the bedside of Henry Inman. In a 
later entry, a notice of his death is given, and later still, an account of the formation of an 
Inman gallery with admission charges to assist the artist’s family. During the exhibition of his 
work, the burial procession of Inman was moving in a long silent line extending from Mulberry 
Street to Reade. 

See W. Dunlap, History of the Arts of Design in the United States, New York, 1834; H. T. 
Tuckerman, Book of the Artists, New York, 1867; T.S. Cummings, Historic Annals of the 
National Academy of Design, Philadelphia, 1865; T. Bolton, Early American Portrait 
Painters in Miniature, New York, 1921. 


89 


AMERICAN MINIATURES 


J ARVIS, JoHN Westey, b. 1780, South Shields, England; d. January 14, 1839, New York 
City. Portrait painter in oils and miniature. 

The father of John Wesley Jarvis sailed for the United States and left him in the care of 
his maternal uncle, John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, after whom he was named. In 
1785, the boy was taken to Philadelphia by his father. Later, he was apprenticed to the en- 
graver Edward Savage, who at the time also employed David Edwin. He moved to New York 
with Savage in 1800, and after two years set up independently as an engraver on Frankfort 
Street. In 1804, he formed a miniature painting partnership with Joseph Wood, which lasted 
until 1809 or later. 

In 1810, Jarvis visited Charleston, and in letters to his friend Henry Brevoort, Washington 
Irving mentions seeing Jarvis in Baltimore. The letters are dated January 13, March 16, and 
April 2, 1811. Jarvis is listed in the catalogue of the Pennsylvania Academy for 1813 and 1814 
as from Baltimore. However, in the latter year, his name also appears in the New York directory 
for it was at this time that he painted his full-length portraits of heroes of the War of 1812 for 
the New York City Hall. Henry Inman became his apprentice, in 1814, and helped paint the 
backgrounds andj draperies in his pictures. At the end of the year, the master and apprentice 
went to New Orleans, the first of repeated visits during winters to that city. A lengthy de- 
scription of Jarvis during a visit to New Orleans is given by Audubon in his Ornithological 
Biography. In 1822, Jarvis and Inman were in Boston, and when summer came, during a yellow- 
fever epidemic, Jarvis stayed at a farmhouse on Long Island. In 1830, Dunlap records visiting 
Jarvis at his room on Vesey Street. The same year, his name appears in the New Orleans 
directory as living at 48 Canal Street. In 1834, a stroke of paralysis partially deprived him of 
speech. 

Jarvis had and cultivated the character of being an eccentric. His irregular life prevented 
him from accomplishing all he might have. He died in extreme poverty at the home of his 
sister. His son, Charles Wesley Jarvis, who was born in 1821 and died in 1868, was also a por- 
trait painter in oils and miniature. 

John Neal gives some account of Jarvis in a paper published in the Atlantic Monthly for 
December, 1868. Dunlap gives the longest account, but portions of it are omitted from the new 
edition of Dunlap’s book. ae 


90 


te 
a 
3 


Henry Burroucus spy H. WriiiiAmMs Epwarp Covrerty By H. WILLiAMs 


A Lapy—asout 1800—Artist UNKNOWN 


PLATE XLIV 


ge a A ee RN «tt Bi a 


Ms 


GENERAL KNox BY GILBERT STUART 


DANIEL WEBSTER BY SARAH GOODRIDGE 


GENERAL KNOx BY SARAH GOODRIDGE 


PLATE XLV 


IATX HLVId 


aDaIUdOO) HVAVG AM LUVALG LuaaTIy GOaTUaOOL) HVUVG AM AOF NIWVENAG 


Hon. Water Forwarp spy ALVAN CLARK Tue Artist’s Wire By ALVAN CLARK 


TuHEopPHILus Parsons BY SARAH GOODRIDGE 


PLATE XLVII 


A BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY OF THE ARTISTS 


M AcDoucaLL, Jonn ALEXANDER, b. 1810 or 1811(?) Livingston, New Jersey; d. 1894. 
Miniature painter and photographer. 

John Alexander MacDougall was the son of a cabinet maker named Hugh MacDougall 
whose shop was at Broadway and Vesey Street. He studied art at the National Academy of 
Design, and from about 1840 to 1845 had a studio on Broadway. From 1841 to 1849, he ex- 
hibited miniatures at the National Academy. During this period, he is recorded as having “a 
wide acquaintance and many clients,” among them Henry Clay and Charlotte Cushman. In 
1846, he moved to Newark and opened a studio as a miniature painter and photographer on 
Broad Street. His photographic venture proved a failure in the panic of 1878. 

For several, winters he visited New Orleans (1839 e. g.), and Charleston, South Carolina, 
painting miniatures, and he was likewise employed for several summers at Saratoga Springs, 
New York. He is said to have been actively engaged as a miniature painter until about 1880. 
His son, Walt MacDougall, who became a famous cartoonist for the New York World, gives 
in his recent book of reminiscences! the following information concerning his father’s shabby 
studio three flights up in Broad Street, Newark: “Father was a handsome man who rather 
resembled William Cullen Bryant. He was of attractive, lovable character and was an omnivo- 
rous reader. He had a remarkable avidity for new methods and ideas and constantly experi- 
mented with novelties in pigments, mediums, and papers. The latest of Newark’s products, 
celluloid, appealed to him as a substitute for ivory in miniature painting, in which art he was 
then the leader in this country, having painted Edgar Allan Poe, Commodore Vanderbilt, and 
other celebrities, and he devoted much time to ascertaining the fitness of celluloid for the pur- 
pose. 

‘His studio was then the resort of a number of men who, whether young or old, all called 
him Jack, to my intense disgust and mortification. Here came constantly George Inness, with 
whom he often went sketching in the Orange Mountains; Thomas Moran, young and handsome, 
just back from the Colorado Cafion and then painting his great pictures, now in the Capitol 
at Washington. ... A.B. Durand, the painter who, like Moran and Drake, had been an en- 
graver and was then devoting all his talent to raising giant strawberries; Thomas Dunn Eng- 
lish, who had written ‘Ben Bolt,’ but was then editing the Register in Newark, and Thomas 
A. Edison, who kept an electrical shop around the corner.” 


Matzsone, Epwarp Greene, b. August, 1777, Newport, Rhode Island; d. May 7, 1807, Savan- 
nah, Georgia. Portrait painter in miniature. 

“1This Is the Life,’’ New York, 1926. 

*Part of the information in this note was supplied by Professor Robert Bruce MacDougall. 


91 


AMERICAN MINIATURES 


Captain Godfrey Malbone, a mariner of Norfolk, Virginia, settled in Newport before 1715 
and built Mansion House in Thames Street, which, until its destruction by fire in 1766, 
was one of the most sumptuous in the vicinity. His son, John Malbone, born 1735, was 
the father of Edward Greene Malbone, the subject of this sketch. At the time of Malbone’s 
birth, August, 1777, Newport was occupied by British troops, and the town was under 
martial law. 

Mrs. Whitehorne, one of Malbone’s three sisters, wrote an extended account of her 
brother, which was published by Dunlap in his History. Mrs. Whitehorne observes that he 
always possessed such “equanimity of mind that nothing ruffled or put him out of his course,” 
and even at an early age he determined to study art in Europe as soon as he was old enough. 
Upon one occasion, he painted some scenery for the theatre in Newport. Then he became in- 
terested in drawing small portraits and appears to have had some hints on painting from Samuel 
King, painter and instrument maker of Newport. About the age of sixteen, Mrs. Whitehorne 
continues, he painted “upon paper, Thomas Lawrence, which was so universally admired by 
every person of taste who saw it, that his father could no longer shut his eyes to his decided 
talent.” An attempt was made to apprentice the boy to a French artist in Philadelphia, but 
nothing came of the negotiations. “But this spirit of procrastination not being in accordance 
with the youth’s feelings,” continued Mrs. Whitehorne, “at seventeen he determined to throw 
himself upon his own resources. Communicating his plans to no one but myself, he proposed a 
visit to Providence, and immediately brought himself before the public as a miniature painter, 
and so warmly was he received, that several weeks passed away before he apprised his father 
of the step he had taken.” The letter he wrote to his father, dated October 11, 1794, is published 
by R. T. H. Halsey in Scribner’s Magazine, May, 1910. 

He remained in Providence for thirteen months continuously employed, visiting Newport 
in 1795 to attend the burial of his father. Upon his return to Providence, he painted with such 
great success that Mr. Moore, the British Consul, invited him to England with every promise 
of success. However, the thought of his three sisters without support made him decide to re- 
main rather than to take chances. Mrs. Whitehorne writes: “A friend now advised his going to 
Boston in 1796, to which he acceded, and was immediately introduced to, and found friends in 
many of the most distinguished characters.” At this time he met a former acquaintance, 
Washington Allston, who wrote later, “I became acquainted with Malbone but a short time 
before he quitted Newport... . Our intimacy, however, did not begin till I entered college, when 
I found him established at Boston.” 

Malbone went to New York in 1797, where he “was liberally employed,” and in the spring 
of 1798 he went to Philadelphia, “where he met equal success.”’ The yellow-fever epidemic, Mrs. 
Whitehorne says, “obliged him to go into the country; even here he found full employment. 


92 


A BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY OF THE ARTISTS 


After this he passed his time alternately in different cities until 1800, the summer of which both 
Mr. Allston and himself passed in Newport, and perhaps it was the happiest of his life.” 

_ Charles Fraser wrote concerning Malbone to William Dunlap: “In the winter of 1800, he 
came to Charleston, where his talents and the peculiar amenity of his manners enhanced the 
attentions which he received from the hospitality of its inhabitants.” Allston writes: “On 
quitting college I returned to Charleston, where I had the pleasure to meet Malbone, and an- 
other friend and artist, Charles Fraser.”” Dunlap quotes from one of Allston’s letters which gives 
a glimpse of the friendship of the three artists: “Mr. Bowman was an excellent scholar, and one 
of the most agreeable talkers I have known. Malbone, Fraser, and myself were frequent guests 
at his table, and delightful parties we always found there.” 

About the middle of May, 1801, Malbone sailed for England with his friend Allston, ar- 
riving about the middle of June, 1801. Together they visited the great art galleries of London, 
according to J. B. Flagg in his Life and Letters of Washington Allston, and Allston was shocked 
that Malbone had no admiration for the old masters. After seeing the pictures of Titian, Ver- 
onese, Rembrandt, and others he pointed to a portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence and said he 
would rather possess that than all the other pictures in the collection. For a short time in 1801 
he studied drawing at the Royal Academy, Somerset House. A letter by Malbone written in 
London at this time and printed by Dunlap reads in part as follows: “Mr. West complimented 
Mr. Allston and myself, and tells us we shall excel in the art. Yesterday was the first time he 
had seen a picture of my painting; to-day he condescended to walk a mile and pay me a visit, 
and told me I must not look forward to anything short of the highest excellence. He was sur- 
prised to see how far I had advanced without instruction. .. . I have not painted many minia- 
tures since I left Charleston: I am painting one now which I shall bring with me. It is ‘The 
Hours,’ the past the present and the coming.” This miniature, based on a design by Samuel 
Shelley, the miniature painter, represents three young women in classical drapery. It is now at 
the Providence Athenzeum. It is signed and dated August, 1801. 

To carry out commissions in Charleston, Malbone sailed at the close of the year and reached 
that port in December, 1801. He quickly finished his engagements and, in 1802, sailed for New- 
port. After that, he visited most of the seaboard cities. In 1803, he was in New York City. In 
1804, he was in Boston. He was still in Boston in the autumn of the next year, where Dunlap 
found him successfully following his profession. His price for a head was fifty dollars. 

 Malbone’s health was at this time delicate. He suffered from phthisis, but, to quote Dun- 
lap, “physical suffering did not change the mild and amiable temper of his mind, or impart any 
asperity to his manners. Eight hours of the four-and-twenty were devoted to the pencil, and 
those in which he mingled in society were not clouded by gloom or complaint. . . . I met Mal- 
bone at the house of Colonel David Humphreys, one of the aids of Washington and long Am- 


93 


AMERICAN MINIATURES 


bassador to Spain, and . . . the champagne notwithstanding, he showed me the method of 
preparing the ivory and furnished me with many valuable hints in addition.” According to 
S. A. Drake’s Landmarks of Boston, Malbone stayed, during his visit to that city, at a fashion- 
able boarding house at the corner of Park and Beacon streets, kept by a Mrs. Carter, which was 
formerly the home of Thomas Amory. 

Mrs. Whitehorne’s letter to Dunlap continues: “He yearly contemplated another visit to 
Europe; but being so fully employed . . . he found it difficult to put his wishes to execution until 
1805, when he sailed for Charleston in December with the intention of going to London the 
following spring. But alas! in March he took a violent cold which settled upon his lungs; his 
sedentary mode of life contributing greatly to hasten on the disease which proved so fatal that 
medical aid was vain.” After painting numerous miniatures, he returned to New York in June, 
1806. 

Malbone remained but a short time in New York before going to Newport, where, accord- 
ing to Mrs. Whitehorne, “he appeared to recruit a little; laying aside his pencil, indulging in 
riding and exercises of various kinds.” His friend Charles Fraser visited him during the summer. 
“Poor Malbone,” he wrote to Charleston in October, ‘‘is not in a condition to paint.” Malbone 
was very fond of hunting, and one day that autumn, while he was out shooting birds, he over- 
exerted himself. “His physicians recommended a warmer climate,” concluded Mrs. White- 
horne, “which he very reluctantly consented to try; ... he accordingly started for Jamaica, 
December, 1806. The voyage not proving of any advantage, and finding himself rapidly de- 
clining, he was anxious to return, and took passage to Savannah, hoping to be able to reach 
Newport as soon as spring opened,”’ but he died in Savannah, May 7, 1807, at the home of his 
cousin, Robert Mackay. He lies buried in the cemetery at Savannah, and the long inscription 
on his memorial stone is given in the Macbeth Gallery Art Notes for November, 1913. 

Malbone has left two portraits of himself, one a portrait in oils which is now owned by the 
Corcoran Gallery of Art, and the other a miniature owned by Mr. R. T. Haines Halsey. 

See Analectic Magazine, Vol. IV, 1815, pp. 225-27; W. Dunlap, History of the Arts of 
Design, New York, 1834; Godey’s Lady’s Book, Vol. XXXV, 1847, p. 119; H. T. Tucker- 
man, Book of Artists, New York, 1867; J. B. Flagg, Washington Allston, New York, 1892; 
A. H. Wharton, Heirlooms in Miniatures, Philadelphia, 1898; A. H. Wharton, Salons 
Colonial and Republican, Philadelphia, 1900; T. Bolton, Early American Portrait Painters 
in Miniature, New York, 1921; M. F. Sweetser, Washington Allston, Cambridge, 1876; 
R. T. H. Halsey in Scribner’s Magazine, May, 1910. ~ 


94 


A BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY OF THE ARTISTS 


| Oe Anna CLAYpPooLz, b. March 6, 1791, Philadelphia; d. there December 25, 1878. 
Miniature painter. 

Anna Claypoole Peale inherited her talent from her father, James Peale, and from her 
maternal grandfather, James Claypoole. She painted in Philadelphia, Washington, New York, 
and Boston. She married twice and exhibited under three names: Anna Claypoole Peale, Mrs. 
Staughton, and Mrs. Duncan. Her first husband was the Reverend William Staughton, a 
popular preacher. Her second husband was General William Duncan. Some account of her life 
is given in Wharton’s Heirlooms in Miniatures, where several of her miniatures are reproduced. 


Preaur, Cuartes Wittson, b. April 15, 1741, Saint Paul’s Parish, Queen Ann’s County, 
Maryland.; d. February 22, 1827, Philadelphia. 

Naturalist and portrait painter in oils and miniature. At the age of thirteen, Charles Will- 
son Peale was apprenticed to a saddler. At twenty he was released from what he called “a 
bondage. of seven years and eight months, a release from labour from sunrise to sunset, and 
from the beginning of candlelight to 9 o’clock during one half of each year under the control of 
a Master.” In 1761, he established himself as a saddler and in addition to this trade he was also 
coachmaker, watchmaker, and silversmith. In 1762, he married Rachael Brewer of Annapolis. 
His'life is written in a delightful twenty-four-page account by Anne Hollingsworth Wharton in 
her Heirlooms in Miniatures, where extended extracts from Peale’s autobiography are given. 

He found time to be interested in painting, and during a business trip to Norfolk the sight 
of some paintings by Frazier led him to think seriously of art as a profession. He also received 
assistance from John Hesselius, who accepted one of the best of Peale’s saddles in return for the 
instruction. In 1764, however, Peale became so engrossed in politics that he did not paint again 
until 1765, when he visited Copley in Boston. In 1766, he was painting in Virginia. The same 
-year, several wealthy citizens of Annapolis, including Governor Sharp, got up a purse and sent 
Peale to London with letters to Ramsay and West. In 1769, he returned to America and painted 
both in Philadelphia and in New York, as well as in Maryland and Virginia. He was in Phila- 
delphia during 1771 and 1772. In 1774, he rented a house in Baltimore and was constantly oc- 
cupied until 1776, when he settled permanently in Philadelphia. 

During the Revolution, Peale saw service as an officer of a company of infantrymen under 
Washington at Trenton and Germantown. At Valley Forge he found time to paint a portrait of 
George Washington and miniatures of many of his brother officers. Portions of Peale’s diary 
covering his life as a soldier were published by H. W. Sellers in the Pennsyivania Magazine of 
History, 1914, Volume XX XVII. In 1779, he was elected to the state legislature. In 1780, he 
bought a house in Philadelphia at the southwest corner of Lombard and Third streets. In 1784, 

95 


AMERICAN MINIATURES 


he established what was known as “Peale’s Museum,” later transferred to the hall of the 
Philosophical Society. It was moved again to Independence Hall in 1802. Besides its curiosities 
and specimens of natural history, the museum contained a series of portraits of eminent Ameri- 
cans by Peale and his son Rembrandt. 

In 1790, Peale’s first wife died, and in 1791, he married as his second wife Elizabeth de 
Peyster of New York. Shortly after his second marriage, he visited the Eastern Shore of Mary- 
land. About 1795, he is said to have abandoned his brush in favour of his son Rembrandt and to 
have become more interested in natural history, painting portraits only to add to his museum 
collection. An important reference to his activity at this time in Washington City is given in 
McClure’s Magazine for July, 1897. 

His third wife was Hannah Moore of Pennsylvania. His children were Rembrandt, Rubens, 
Titian, Raphaelle, Sophonisba, Angelica Kauffman, Linneeus, and Franklin. E. L. Dider, in 
“A Family of Painters,” published August 26, 1882, in the American Magazine, quotes from 
Rembrandt Peale’s account of his father the following passage: “The last years of his life he 
luxuriated in the enjoyment of a country seat near Germantown, with hanging gardens, a 
grotto and a fountain and a hospitable table for his friends.” 


Pratz, James, b. 1749, Chestertown, Maryland; d. May 24, 1831, Philadelphia. Portrait 
painter in miniature and oils. 

James Peale was the younger brother of Charles Willson Peale. He was apprenticed to his 
brother as a saddler in Annapolis. During the Revolution, he served as an officer, rising to the 
rank of captain in the Continental Army. He was a member of the Maryland Society of the 
Cincinnati. Except for a period when he lived in the South, his life after the war was spent in 
Philadelphia. He had six children, and of these James, junior, Anna, Maria, and Sarah became 
artists. 

His copies of the portrait by C. W. Peale of George Washington painted in 1787 are alluded 
to by his nephew Rembrandt Peale in his lecture on Portraits of Washington as follows: “This 
portrait, which was only a head size, was copied by my uncle James Peale on a larger canvas, 
adding the figure in military costume and an attendant with a horse in the background. The 
attendant is a portrait of himself. It is now the property of Mr. James Fenno, and was copied 
many times by my Father’s Nephew, Charles Peale Polk.” 

Besides this portrait in oils, which was not painted from life, James painted several small- 
sized portraits of Washington, which undoubtedly were from life. One of these, a miniature on 
ivory painted at the time Washington sat to the Peale family in 1795, is now lost. 

James Peale was a prolific painter of miniatures. His brother, Charles Willson Peale, painted 
a half-length portrait of him seated at a table, brush in hand, and his head turned toward the 

96 


— 
i 
X 


———s 


A BIoGRAPHICAL DicTIONARY OF THE ARTISTS 


spectator as if momentarily interrupted in the painting of two miniatures which are on a tilted 


drawing board before him. A glass of water and some of the implements of his crafts are near by. 


PrA.e, RapHae (on RapHar.ye), b. February 17, 1774, Annapolis, Maryland; d. March 25, 
1825, Philadelphia. Miniature and still life painter. 

Raphael Peale was a son of Charles Willson Peale. His address and occupation are given 
in a catalogue of an exhibition at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts as follows: 


“Portrait, miniature and Still Life Painter, 24 Powel between Fifth and Sixth Streets.” He 


painted a profile in water colour of George Washington. 

From 1796 to 1799, he joined with his younger brother Rembrandt in attempting to estab- 
lish in Baltimore a portrait gallery of distinguished persons. After 1799, he followed his pro- 
fession for some years in Philadelphia. In 1803, he painted in Norfolk, and in the following year, 
joined his brother Rembrandt in visiting Savannah, Charleston, Baltimore, and Boston. He also 
made some profile portraits, using the physiognotrace, and after his health declined in 1815 de- 
voted himself to painting still life. 


Prare, Rempranot, b. February 22, 1778, Bucks County, Pennsylvania; d. October 4, 1860, 
Philadelphia. Historical and portrait painter. 

Rembrandt Peale was the second son of C. W. Peale. In 1795, he and his father painted 
Washington from life in Philadelphia. About 1796-99, Rembrandt Peale, with his elder brother 
Raphael, was in Baltimore and later in Charleston, South Carolina, and other cities. The 
winter of 1799 he spent in Annapolis. He studied under West in London during 1802-03. In 
1804, he was established in Philadelphia. In 1807 and 1809, he made two trips to Paris to paint 
portraits of distinguished men for “Peale’s Museum.”! During 1812-13 he was in Baltimore, 
during which period he experimented in illuminating gas and founded the Baltimore Gas 
Company. He was in Philadelphia, Boston, and New York during 1822-28. In 1828, he sailed 
for Europe. He first visited Paris and Naples; by 1829, he was in Rome, where he stayed a few 
months; he then revisited Paris; next he went to London, and returned finally to New York in 
September, 1830, publishing an account of his visit the following year. In 1832-33, he made a 
final visit to England, staying in London, Sheffield, and Liverpool. In 1834, he settled in New 
York. He succeeded Trumbull as the president of the American Academy and was a charter 
member of the National Academy. He settled permanently in Philadelphia some time before 
the year 1843, where, according to the directory, he is listed as a “Naturalist, Philadelphia 
Museum, home 6 South Penn Square.” From 1849 to 1860, he lived on Vine Street. He published 
several books on art. His reminiscences, published in the Crayon during 1855-56, give much 
valuable information concerning the early American Artists. 


1 Peale’s Museum” in New York is described in Mrs. A. Royal’s Black Book, 1828, Vol. II. 
97 


AMERICAN MINIATURES 


In addition to his portrait of Washington from life in 1795, Peale painted a composite like- 
ness that has no merit as a document and little as a work of art. It is called the “Port Hole 
Portrait’ because of the port hole painted about it as a frame. According to his own statement, 
he made seventy-nine replicas of this portrait and thirty-nine copies of his father’s bust portrait 
of Washington. 


Pe.uam, Henry, b. February 14, 1749, Boston; d. 1806, Kenmare River, Ireland. Engraver 
and portrait painter in oils and miniature. 

Henry Pelham was the half-brother of John Singleton Copley. In a letter dated March 29, 
1770, from Henry Pelham to Paul Revere, the writer protests: “When I heard that you was 
cutting a plate of the late Murder, I thought it impossible as I knew you was not capable of 
doing it unless you copied it from mine.” This was apropos of the engraving of The Boston 
Massacre by Paul Revere. In a letter dated May 1, 1770, from Henry Pelham to Charles Pel- 
ham, the writer notes: “Inclosed I send you two of my prints of the late massacre.” According 
to Mantle Fielding, in his Dictionary of American Painters, Sculptors and Engravers, “no such 
prints by Pelham are known”’; the opinion of some writers is recorded that the water-colour 
versions of the scene are by Pelham and possibly might be the “prints” referred to. He left 
America at the time of the Revolution. In 1778, he was in England exhibiting two miniatures 
and a religious composition at the Royal Academy. The next year, he exhibited four miniatures. 
He then went to Ireland where he married a Miss Butler and exhibited at the Society of Artists 
in 1780. He illustrated Grose’s Antiquities of Ireland with small engraved landscapes, and also 
made a map of County Clare. He was drowned in Kenmare River by the capsizing of a boat 
while acting as the supervisor, in the service of the Marquis of Lansdowne, of some engineering 
construction. 

The letters and papers of Henry Pelham and John Singleton Copley from 1739 to 1776 
were published as Volume LXXI of the Massachusetts Historical Soctety Collections in 1914. 
See also the same publication for 1866-67. 


Pericouas, Parurr A., b. 1760, Italy; d. 1843, Richmond, Virginia. Miniature painter. 

He made several miniature copies of Gilbert Stuart’s first portrait of Washington. His son, 
Edward F. Peticolas, was likewise a miniature painter. 

Most of the miniatures by the elder Peticolas were painted in or about Richmond, and they 
are apt to be dated, and signed: P. A. Peticolas. A portrait of Philip Larus is so signed and dated: 
1797 Winc-ter. 

See T. Bolton, Early American Portrait Painters in Miniature, New York, 1921; 

W. Dunlap, History of the Arts of Design, 1918 edition. 

98 


J. LinzeEe sy Statice 


Mrs. Jor 


Joun J. Linzer sy Sraiace 


PLATE XLVIII 


A BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY OF THE ARTISTS 


Pratt, Marrnew, b. September 23, 1734, Philadelphia; d. there, January 9, 1805. Portrait 
painter in oils and miniature. 

Matthew Pratt was the son of Henry Pratt, a goldsmith who was a friend of Franklin. 
After serving an apprenticeship with his maternal uncle, James Claypoole, the portrait painter, 
which lasted for six years and eight months, he began painting independently in 1755, forming a 
partnership with Francis Foster. In 1757, he sailed, on a business trip, for Jamaica, where he 
remained six months. In 1760, he married Elizabeth Moore. In 1764, he went to London with 
John West, the brother of Benjamin West, and Elizabeth Shewell, to whom Benjamin was 
betrothed; and was present at the wedding. He remained two years and six months in London 
and eighteen months in Bristul, returning to Philadelphia in 1768. In 1770, he sailed for Ireland 
with his wife, who had to attend to an inheritance, returning to Philadelphia by June of the 
same year. In 1772, he painted portraits in New York. Tuckerman notes that Pratt painted 
between fifty or sixty portraits in New York. 

Some autobiographical notes by Matthew Pratt were published in the Pennsylvania 

Magazine of History, Vol. XIX, 1895. See also H arper’s Weekly, July 4, 1896, C. H. Hart, 

A Limner of Colonial Days, Matthew Pratt. hay 


99 


AMERICAN MINIATURES 


Riawacz, Joun, b. before 1763, Ireland; d. October 24, 1802, Montreal. Miniature painter. 

According to Strickland’s Dictionary of Irish Artists, Ramage entered the school of the 
Dublin Society of Artists in 1763. As early as 1775, he was a practising goldsmith and miniature 
painter in Boston. He was a second lieutenant in the Royal Irish Volunteers, organized in 1775 
for the defence of that city. He went with his company to Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1776, and 
later to New York, where he was commissioned in February 2, 1780, as Lieutenant of Company 
7, City Militia. He remained in New York after the evacuation of the city by the British troops, 
and, according to the city directory, established himself as a miniature painter at 25 William 
Street. 

Dunlap notes: “. . . he continued to be the best artist in his branch for many years after, 
Mr. Ramage occasionally painted in crayons or pastile, the size of life. His miniatures were 
in the line style, as opposed to the dotted. . .. Mr. Ramage was a handsome man of the middle 
size, with an intelligent countenance and lively eye. He dressed fashionably and, according to 
the time, beauishly.” 

Ramage painted a miniature of George Washington, who notes the sitting in his diary for 
October 3, 1789, as follows: “Sat for Mr. Rammage near two hours to-day, who was drawing 
a miniature Picture of me for Mrs. Washington.” According to an article by H. S. Stabler, called 
“Two Unpublished Portraits of Washington,” in M cClure’s Magazine, February, 1894, a 
miniature by Ramage of Washington descending to H. S. Stabler and his brothers from Betty 
Washington is the original miniature from life. 

In 1794, Ramage left New York for Montreal, according to F. W. Bayley in his Little 
Known Early American Portrait Painters. While in Canada, according to a letter published in 
Stabler’s article aforementioned, he was put under guard for thirty days for speaking favour- 
ably of the American people. 


Rogertson, ARCHIBALD, b. May 8, 1765, Monymusk, near Aberdeen, Scotland; d. December 
6, 1835, New York City. Miniature painter. 

There were three Robertson brothers, Alexander, Archibald, and Andrew, who were minia- 
ture painters, and two of them, Alexander and Archibald, came to the United States. 

Archibald Robertson was a friend of both Raeburn and Weir in Edinburgh, and all three 
artists used the green room of the theatre as a studio. Robertson went to London in 1786, 
receiving instruction in miniature painting from Peacock and Sheriff. He also studied under 
West at the Royal Academy. In 1791, he came to New York. Emily Robertson, a niece of the 
artist, noted in a letter, printed in Wharton’s Hezrlooms in Miniatures, that he was invited to 
New York by Dr. Kemp of Columbia College, Chancellor Livingston and Dr. Samuel Bard, 

100 


A BIoGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY OF THE ARTISTS 


through Dr. Gordon of King’s College, Aberdeen. Hearing of his intended visit, the Earl of 
Buchan at Edinburgh requested that he take to George Washington a box made of part of the 
oak tree that sheltered William Wallace. Letters concerning the delivery of this box, as well as 
other information, are published in the Century Magazine for May, 1890. Robertson took 
advantage of the occasion of this visit to Philadelphia to paint a miniature portrait of Washing- 
ton on a slab of marble which is now owned by the New York Historical Society. He settled 
permanently in New York City and established the Columbian Academy with his brother 
Alexander who came to the United States in 1792. 
See also Dunlap, History of the Arts of Design in the United States, New York, 1834. 


Rosertson, Watter, b. 17—? Dublin, Ireland; d. 1802, Futtehpur, India. Miniature painter. 

Walter Robertson is said to have been the son of a jeweller in Dublin. His brother, Charles 
Robertson, was likewise a miniature painter. He studied at the Dublin Society Schools which he 
entered in November, 1765, and by about 1768, he established himself as a miniature painter. 
He exhibited miniatures at the Society of Artists displays in Dublin from 1769 to 1775 and in 
1777. About 1784, he went to London, returning to Dublin in 1792, where he was declared 
bankrupt. He had met Gilbert Stuart in London, and early in 1793, he took the same ship with 
him for the United States. For a time, he is said to have made copies in miniature from Stuart’s 
portraits in oils. 

In 1794, he painted a miniature from life of George Washington which was engraved by 
several artists, among them Robert Field, and which was reproduced in the Century Magazine 
for May, 1890. He also painted a miniature of Martha Washington which he engraved for 
Longacre’s National Portrait Gallery, and a miniature of Alexander Hamilton which is now 
lost. ‘ 

His first wife, whom he married in 1771, was Margaret Bently of Dublin. His second wife, 
whom he married in 1781, was Elinor Robertson. 

His portrait in miniature by his brother Charles Robertson is in the National Gallery of 
Ireland. Strickland notes: “No miniatures which can be identified as his have been met with.” 

See T. Bolton, Early American Portrait Painters in Miniature, New York, 1921; W. G. 

Strickland, Dictionary of Irish Artists, Dublin, 1913; C. H. Hart, Engraved Portraits of 

Washington, New York, 1904. 


Rocers, NATHANIEL, b. 1788, Bridgehampton, Long Island; d. there, December 6, 1844. 
Miniature painter. 

William Dunlap in his History of the Arts of Design devotes several pages to Nathaniel 
Rogers. In 1811, after Joseph Wood had severed his partnership with John Wesley Jarvis and 
was painting with great success at a studio on Broadway, Nathaniel Rogers became his pupil 

161 


AMERICAN MINIATURES 


but soon set up independently as a miniature painter at 86 Broadway. In 1818, ie marri 
Caroline Matilda Denison, daughter of Captain Samuel Denison of Sag Harbor. In 1825. : 

ing health forced him to live largely on Long Island, but he found time to paint “most of the 
fashionables of his day,” according to Cummings in his Historic Annals of the N. ationa Mad 


-emy. He was elected a member of the National Academy in 1826 and later was ret tired z 
Honorary Member for non-residence. 


A Biocrapnican DicTIonaRyY OF THE ARTISTS 


Rrces, Grorce L., b. 1774, Kingshorn, Scotland; d. after 1848. Miniature painter. 

George L. Saunders worked [in Edinburgh and London. He was a pupil of Smeaton and 
exhibited in London during 1829-53. He painted Lord Byron and the Princess Charlotte. 
His miniatures are rather large in size. Graves, in his Dictionary of Artists, gives 1853 as the 
latest year Saunders was exhibiting in London. One art historian gives March 26, 1846, as the 
date of his death. However, Thomas Sully, writing in 1848 to his brother-in-law Professor 
Porcher, of Charleston, South Carolina, asks: “Has Fraser told you how Mr. Saunders, the 
miniature painter, has mended?” This, added to the fact that a number of American miniature 
portraits of Baltimore and Philadelphia people are signed “G. L. Saunders,’ would indicate 
that the artists spent some time in the United States. (See Antiques for August, 1925, where 
one of these miniatures is reproduced.) 


SAVAGE, Epwarp, b. November 26, 1761, Princeton, Massachusetts; d. there July 6, 1817. 
Engraver and portrait painter. 

The grandfather of Edward Savage also named Edward Savage, was born in Ireland, the 
son of a Frenchman named Abraham Sauvage, who left St. Algis, Picardy, on the Revocation 
of the Edict of Nantes. The father of Edward Savage, the artist, was Seth Savage. 

Edward Savage is said to have been a goldsmith before turning to painting as a profession. 
In 1789-90 Washington notes in his diary sitting for his portrait to Savage, who was com- 
missioned by Harvard University. In 1791, Savage studied under West in London, and may 
possibly have learned engraving at that time. Later he went to Boston and then, about 1794, 
settled in Philadelphia. In Philadelphia he employed as engravers David Edwin and J. W. 
Jarvis. In 1800, he moved to New York, where, in 1812, he became interested in the New York 
Museum. His collection in Boston was bought by E. A. Greenwood, and this, with additions, 
became the nucleus of the Boston Museum. | 

Edward Savage’s portrait of Washington is owned by Harvard University. Of this portrait 
he made several replicas. He also painted the group portrait of Washington and his family. 
Miniatures by Savage are rare. 

See C. H. Hart, “Edward Savage, Painter and Engraver,” in the Massachusetts His- 
| torical Society Proceedings; and Pennsylvania Magazine of History, Vol. XXIX, 1905. 


Simms, Mary Jane. Flourished 1826-34, Baltimore. Portrait painter in oils and miniature. 

Dunlap prints the following as a footnote to the chapter on Rembrandt Peale in his History 

of the Arts of Design: “Anna Peale, now Mrs. Staughton of Philadelphia, is well known as a 

miniature painter. Her sister, Sarah, residing in Baltimore (says my informant), practises the 
103 


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AMERICAN MINIATURES 


boldest branch of portrait painting in oil, and their niece Mary Jane Simes, herself a living 
miniature, rivals her aunt in the same style.” 

Mary Jane Simes exhibited for several years at the Pennsylvania Academy. Her mother 
was James Peale’s daughter Jane; her father was Samuel Simes. Baltimore directories, 1831-33, 
show her as living with her mother, who is listed as a music teacher, and her Aunt Sarah, the 
portrait painter. Their address was the southeast corner of Pleasant and Charles streets. Later 
they moved to Fayette near Hollyday Street, one block from Peale’s Museum. ° 


Sraicc, Ricuarp Morre.t, b. September 7, 1817, Leeds, England; d. October 11, 1881, New- 
port, R. I. Portrait painter in oils and miniature; and crayon portrait draughtsman. . 
Richard Morrell Staigg, or Stagg as the name is sometimes spelled, worked in England as 
an architect’s assistant about 1830-31. The latter year he came to the United States and 
settled in Newport, where he was encouraged by Allston to become an artist. Much of his work 
was done in Boston. His early work is exclusively in miniature on ivory and comparatively 
large in scale. His later work, which is in oils, includes genre subjects as well as portraits. Staigg 
was elected National Academician in 1861, and displayed his work annually at the Academy 
Exhibitions. In 1867-69 and 1872-74 he visited Europe. He settled finally at Newport, where, 
immediately after his death, a sale of his effects included twenty-five miniatures, one hundred 
and three oil paintings, as well as water colours. Twenty of Staigg’s miniatures are listed in 
Early American Portrait Painters in Miniature, in which volume is also to be found a repre- 
duction of his miniature of John Lothrop Motley. In the Book of Artisis, by H. T. Tuckerman, 
there is mention of a “series of crayon heads of children remarkable for delicate accuracy and 
truth.” 


Stuart, GitBEeRrt, b. December 3, 1755, North Kingston, Rhode Island; d. July 27, 1828, 
Boston. Portrait painter. 

As Gilbert Stuart is one of the greatest portrait painters that this country has produced, 
and as he has two large works written about him, the latest in four volumes, it is unnecessary 
here to do more than give the outstanding dates of his life, which, until recently, have not been 
stated accurately. 

From 1768 to perhaps 1770, he attended school at Newport. In 1770 to perhaps 1772, he 
received casual instruction in art from Cosmo Alexander with whom he travelled South, prob- 
ably in the autumn of the latter year, and whom he later accompanied to Scotland. He returned 
to Newport probably in 1774. 

On the eve of the Battle of Bunker’s Hill, not from any Tory inclination, so far as is known, 
perhaps to avoid conscription, but most probably to follow his bent as an artist, he sailed on 
June 16, 1775, for England. 


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A BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY OF THE ARTISTS 


In December, 1776, he wrote a letter to Benjamin West asking for his instruction and 
assistance. By 1777, he exhibited for the first time at the Royal Academy, and by 1782, he set 
up independently as an artist. 

Late in October, 1787, he went to Dublin, Ireland, leaving about December, 1792, for the 
United States. In 1793 and 1794 he was painting in New York, leaving in November of the 
latter year for Philadelphia, where he painted his first portrait of George Washington. From 
the early spring of 1796 to 1803, he worked at Germantown, moving thence to Washington, 
where he remained until 1805. That year, after a short stay in Bordentown, he went to Boston, 
where he finally died. 

See Lawrence Park, Gilbert Stuart, New York, 1926, 4 vols.; G. C. Mason, Life and 

Works of Gilbert Stuart, New York, 1879. 


SuLLy, Tuomas, b. June, 1783, Horncastle, England; d. November 5, 1872. Portrait painter in 
oils and miniature. 

The parents of Thomas Sully were English actors who came to Charleston, South Carolina, 
in 1792. After a brief schooling at Charleston College, Thomas Sully entered an insurance 
office at an early age. Neglecting his work, he was soon sent to study art with a French minia- 
ture painter named Belzons, who was an uncle by marriage. In 1799, the master and pupil came 
to blows after a short period together, and Sully left for Norfolk, where he joined his brother 
Lawrence, who was a miniature painter. Adopting the same branch of the art, Thomas started 
painting professionally in 1801. In 1804, he went to Richmond, then to Petersburgh, and finally 
to North Carolina, where he married his brother Lawrence’s widow. He lived in Richmond 
again until 1806, in which year he went to New York and received advice about painting from 
John Wesley Jarvis. He also called upon Trumbull for advice; but received far different treat- 
ment than he had from the eccentric but generous Jarvis. In 1807, he made a trip to Boston to 
see Gilbert Stuart, who gave him every assistance. In 1808, he was back in New York; in 1809, 
he was in Philadelphia; and during 1809-10 he was in London. Returning to Philadelphia 
in the spring of 1810, he made his home there from then on, although he frequently made visits 
to other cities, as the Register which he kept of his portraits shows. Thus, in 1818, he visited 
New York; in March, April, and November of 1820, he visited Baltimore; in 1821, he went to 
Virginia; from July to September of 1831, he was in Boston; he made a second trip to England 
from 1837 to 1838, at which time he painted a full-length portrait of Queen Victoria; from April 
to June, 1840, he was in Washington, D. C., from June to September of the same year, he visited 
Baltimore, and by December, he was in Boston. He visited Charleston during the winter of 
1841-42 and in 1845-46, and he was in Providence in June, 1847, and in Boston in July, 1848. 
From April to June, 1849, and again in October, 1850, and June, 1851, he was in Richmond, 
Virginia, and his last recorded visits were those to Baltimore in October, 1852, and June, 1853. 

105 


AMERICAN MINIATURES 


The dates of these professional visits to other cities than Philadelphia may help in identifying 
further portraits by Sully which he failed to list in his Register. 

His address in Philadelphia from 1828 until his death forty-four years later was 11 South 
Fifth Street, at the corner of Chestnut. A notice of his death appeared in the Philadelphia 
Inquirer for November 6, 1872. 

At the memorial exhibition of portraits by Thomas Sully held at the Pennsylvania Academy 
of the Fine Arts in 1922, there were shown two hundred and thirty-five paintings. The catalogue 
of that display is well illustrated. In 1921, Edward Biddle and Mantle Fielding published their 
authoritative volume Thomas Sully, which lists more than two thousand portraits in addition 
to miniatures and several hundred fancy subjects. In addition to his portraits on a large scale, 
Sully painted in water colours both on ivory and on paper and also in oils on small-sized can- 
vases. Long extracts from Sully’s account of himself appeared in William Dunlap’s History of 
the Arts of Design. Some recollections were published in Hours at Home for November, 1869. 


106 


A BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY OF THE ARTISTS 


Siete, JEREMIAH, b. before 1720, in Switzerland; d. May 18, 1774, Charleston, South Caro- 
lina. Portrait painter. 

Jeremiah Theiis is said to have been one of three brothers who came from Switzerland in 
1739 with the Swiss-German colonists who settled Orangeburg County, South Carolina. He 
soon established himself as an artist, for the next year he inserted the following advertise- 
ment in the South Carolina Gazette for August 30, “Jeremiah Theiis, limner gives notice that he 
is removed into Market Square, near John Laurens, Sadler, where all gentlemen and Ladies may 
have their pictures drawn, likewise Landscapes of all sizes, Crests and Coats of Arms for Coaches 
and Chaises. Likewise for the convenience of those who live in the country he is willing to wait 
on them at their respective plantations.’ He married Elizabeth Schaumléffel in January, 1742, 
who died in 1754, leaving five children. He later married a widow, Mrs. Eva Hilt, by whom 
he had four children. 

Portraits by Theiis were formerly frequently attributed to Copley. A portrait of Bolzius by 
Theiis was engraved. As Bolzius was a clergyman in Georgia, it is possible that Theiis made a 
visit to that state. More than seventy portraits by Theiis have been identified. John S. Dart, 
Johann DeKalb, William Elliott, Daniel Heyward, Gabriel Manigault, Stephen Mazyck, 
Robert Pringle, Samuel Prioleau, Daniel Ravenel, and James Skirving were some of the men 
whose portraits he painted. 

See Robert Wilson, “Art and Artists in Provincial Carolina,” in the Charleston Year Book, 

1899; John Hill Morgan, “Notes on Jeremiah Theiis,” in the Brooklyn Museum Quarterly, 


April, 1924, etc. 


Trott, BensaMtn, b. about 1770, probably in Boston; still living in Baltimore in 1841. Portrait 
painter in oils and miniature. 

According to Dunlap’s History, Benjamin Trott probably came from Boston. The 
first definite information concerning himis that he was painting miniatures in New York 
about 1791 and left a few years later for Philadelphia to make miniature copies for Gilbert 
Stuart. 

Dunlap notes: “Notwithstanding Stuart’s approbation, Trott longed to be able to imitate 
the colouring of Walter Robertson; and I remember to have seen in his possession one of the 
Irishman’s miniatures, half obliterated by the Yankee’s experiments, who, to dive into the 
secret, made his way beneath the surface like a mole, and in equal darkness. He followed or 
accompanied Stuart when he removed from New York to Philadelphia; and that city was his 
headquarters for many years. His copies on ivory with water colours, from Stuart’s oil portraits 
were good—one from ‘Washington,’ extremely beautiful and true.” 

107 


AMERICAN MINIATURES 


About the year 1796, Trott accompanied Elkanah Tisdale on a visit to Albany, where they 
took a room and painted some heads. ‘ 

In 1798, he moved to the Falls of the Schuylkill, where he had as neighbours David Edwin 
and Gilbert Stuart. The same year his name appears in the New York directory as a miniature 
painter living at Number 1 Wall Street. 

“In 1805,” according to Dunlap, “Mr. Trott visited the Western World beyond the 
mountains, travelling generally on horseback, with the implements of his art in his saddle-bags. 
This was a lucrative journey. He returned to Philadelphia in 1806, at which time I was there with 
my friend Charles Brockden Brown; and I became somewhat intimate with Trott, and pleased 
with the pungency of his remarks and amused by the eccentricity of his manners. At this time his 
reputation was at its height, and he might have commanded more employment than he did, but 
he was visited by a most mischievous notion, a disease of the mind, which occasionally affects 
painters—this was a firm conviction that some vehicle had been discovered for conveying colours 
to the ivory, which gave force, clearness and every good quality; but that it was kept secret 
by those who used it, and gave great advantages to certain colourists. . . . I must, however, 
acknowledge, that by his distillations and filterings he produced some of the cleanest pigments 
that ever I used; and he bestowed upon me specimens of all the necessary colours for miniatures.” 

The partially defaced inscription on the back of a miniature by Trott of Peregrine Wroth 
which is in Wroth’s own handwriting runs as follows: “ Peregrine Wroth Painted by Mr. Trott, 
Sansom ... Philadelphia ... Anno Domini 1806.” Trott must have had simply a studio 
on Sansom Street, for, according to the Philadelphia directory for 1806, he lived at 231 Mulberry 
Street. In 1807, he moved to Sixth and Minor streets, where he stayed until 1801. In 1811 and 
1812, he exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy. From 1813 to 1819, he lived at 7 Little George 
Street, leaving in the winter of the latter year for Charleston, South Carolina. He again stayed 
for some years in Philadelphia, until, having made an unfortunate marriage, he moved to 
Newark, where he lived in obscurity for a number of years. In the New York directory for 
1829-30 he is thus listed: “B. Trott, portrait and miniature painter. 15 Pine. Upstairs.” 
In 1832-33 his address was 40 Arcade. He painted portraits in oils at this time, according to 
Dunlap, “with no success.” In the Boston directory for 1833, his name appears as follows: 
“Benj. Trott, Miniature painter. 3 Scollay Buildings.” C. H. Hart notes that he was painting 
in Baltimore in September, 1839, and his name appears once more in the Baltimore directory 
for 1840-41: “B. Trott portrait and miniature painter. Office cor. St. Paul and Fayette Sts.” 
Twenty-six miniatures by Trott are listed in Early American Portrait Painters in Miniature, and 
several of his miniatures are reproduced in Hetrlooms in Miniatures, by A. H. Wharton. 


TRUMBULL, JoHN, b. June 6, 1756, Lebanon, Connecticut; d. November 10, 1843, New York 
City. Historical and portrait painter in oils and miniature. 
108 


A BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY OF THE ARTISTS 


Trumbull, the son of Jonathan Trumbull, governor of Connecticut, was educated in his 
native town and later at Harvard, where he graduated in 1773. Law and the ministry were 
both suggested by his father as possible careers. However, he went into the army. After witness- 
ing the Battle of Bunker’s Hill from the heights of Roxbury, as adjutant of the First Connecti- 
cut Regiment, he was appointed Deputy Adjutant General with the rank of Colonel under 
General Gates in June, 1776, accompanying his commander to Albany and Ticonderoga. In 
February, 1777, he received his commission, dated September, 1776, and indignantly resigned 
owing to the discrepancy in the time. He returned shortly to Lebanon and then went on to 
Boston, where he remained until 1779. In May, 1780, he sailed for Paris in a French ship of war, 
met Benjamin Franklin, who gave him a letter to West, and proceeded to London. While study- 
ing under West in London, he was seized and sent to prison as a retaliatory measure for the 
capture of André, in America, but was released through the intercession of Copley and West. 
He returned to America in June, 1781. 

He was a contractor for army supplies at New Windsor on the Hudson in 1782-83, In 
1784, he returned to London and studied with West. In 1785, he “made his first attempt at the 
composition of a military scene,” to use his own words, and presently “began to meditate seri- 
ously the subjects of National history events of the Revolution,” which he notes further, “be- 
came the great object of my life.”” The “Battle of Bunker’s Hill” was the first subject decided 
upon. He visited Paris in 1785-86 and 1789, and in the latter year witnessed the destruction 
of the Bastille. 

From 1789 to 1794, he lived principally in New York, visiting various cities, in the 
meanwhile, to obtain portraits for his historical dramas. Many of these small likenesses are 
now at Yale and may be taken to constitute his best work. The dates of his visits to various 
cities at this time are: 1790, Boston and Philadelphia; 1791, Charleston, S. C., Yorktown, 
Williamsburg, Richmond, and Fredericksburg; 1792, Philadelphia; 1793, Boston. 

In May, 1794, he embarked for London with John Jay, acting as his secretary to the com- 
mission for the settlement of claims against Great Britain. In July, 1797, he visited Stuttgart to 
see Johann Gotthard von Miiller, the engraver, who was making a plate of his Battle of Bun- 
ker’s Hill. Passing through Paris on his way to England he was delayed by the authorities, who 
refused to grant him a passport. Finally the eloquence of the artist Louis David procured the 
passport from Talleyrand, and he returned to London. In 1804, after ten years in Europe, 
he left London for New York, but from 1808 to 1812 he was again in London. His latter years 
were spent for the most part in New York except for a four-years’ (1837-41) visit to Dr. 
Silliman, in New Haven, where he wrote his Autobiography. In 1816, he became the president 
of the American Academy of Fine Arts. In 1831, he deposited his large collection of paintings 
at Yale University, receiving in return an annuity of $1,000. 


109 


AMERICAN MINIATURES 


Although he died in New York City, Trumbull was buried at one end of the Trumbull 
Gallery at Yale University. Goethe mentions, in a letter to Schiller dated August, 1797, seeing 
the painting, The Battle of Bunker’s Hill, while it was being engraved in Stuttgart. 

~ See T. S. Cummings, Historic Annals of the National Academy, Philadelphia, 1867; 

Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Vol XXXI, 1907; J. Trumbull, Autobrog- 

raphy, New York, 1841; W. Dunlap, History of the Arts of Design in the United States, New 

York, 1834; New England M agazine, January, 1896; T. Bolton, Early American Portrait 


Painters in Miniature, New York, 1921. 


110 


A BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY OF THE ARTISTS 


BV rcow, JOHN, b. 1685, Scotland; d. August 22, 1768, Perth Amboy, New Jersey. Portrait 
painter. 

John Watson was a Scotsman who came to the Colonies in 1715, settling at Perth Amboy. 
Upon a visit to Europe, he brought back a collection of pictures which Dunlap remarks con- 
stituted the first of its kind in America. It was later destroyed. 

Watson was known to his neighbours as a miser and a usurer and a man of irascible dispo- 
sition. William A. Whitehead reproduces in his Contributions to the Early History of Perth Amboy 
(New York, 1856) three small portraits by Watson, in pencil and India ink, of the artist himself 
and of the Rev. Edward Vaughan and Governor William Burnet. These belonged at the time 
to the author, together with similar portraits of Governor Keith of Pennsylvania and his Lady 
(now both belonging to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania) and of Governor Spotswood of 
Virginia and Judge Bunnel. * 


West, Bensamin, b. October 10, 1738, at what is now Swarthmore, Pennsylvania: d. March 
10, 1820, in London. Historical and portrait painter. 

Benjamin West was one of the ten children of John West and Sarah (Pearson) West. 

An incident of West’s youth that remains to be verified is the statement that he served in a 
company of volunteer soldiers under “Mad” Anthony Wayne. It is definitely known that he 
had established himself in Philadelphia as a portrait painter when he was eighteen years old. 
His next move was to New York, where, through the good offices of one of his sitters, a Mr. 
Kelly, he was enabled to sail for Italy. He arrived at Rome on July 10, 1760. 

Here he remained several years, receiving generous financial assistance from Governor 
Hamilton and Chief Justice Allen, both of Pennsylvania. Before his Italian stay was over he 
was made a member of the academies of Parma, Florence, and Bologna. 

He then went to England, arriving in London, June 20, 1763, and was met by three Amer- 
ican friends, Chief Justice Allen, Governor Hamilton, and Doctor Smith of the College of 
Philadelphia, an indication of the esteem he early commanded. 

In London, he took lodgings in Bedford Street, Covent Garden, and later in Castle Street. 
He finally rented a studio at Number 14 Newman Street, which he kept the rest of his life 
and which became the meeting place for most American artists visiting London. Shortly after 
he was comfortably settled, he sent for Elizabeth Shewell of Philadelphia, to whom he was en- 
gaged before going to Italy, and whom he married in 1764. 

He painted huge historical canvases with general public applause, which is now, however, 
reserved for his work in portraiture. 

See unpublished letters of Benjamin West, in Pennsylvania Magazine, Vol. XXXII, 
111 


AMERICAN MINIATURES 


1908; W. Dunlap, History of the Arts of Design in the United States, New York, 1834; Notes 
of Matthew Pratt in Pennsylvania Magazine, Vol. XTX, 1895; M. Fielding, Dictionary of 
American Painters, Sculptors and Engravers, Philadelphia, 1926. 


Wiu1ams, Henry, b. 1787, Boston; d. there, October 21, 1830. Engraver, pastellist, and por- 
trait painter in miniature. | 

Henry Williams painted portraits and also engraved in stipple. Several of his portraits 
were engraved by Rubens Smith. An engraved portrait of Elias Smith by Williams was pub- 
lished at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in 1816. In the New England Palladium for 1824, “H. 
Williams” advertised as a portrait and miniature painter, concluding with the following in- 
formation: “‘He also continues to paint from the dead in his peculiar manner by masks.” It is 
entirely possible that Henry Williams is the author of silhouettes signed “Williams” in a re- 
verse manner. 

William Dunlap, writing of the year 1813, notes: “‘ Williams painted both in oil and minia- 
ture at this period in Boston. He was likewise a professor of electricity; and in addition modelled 
in wax. He was a small, short, self-sufficient man, very dirty, and very forward and patronizing 
in his manner.” A portrait in wax by Williams of Eben Larkin is owned by the Worcester Art 
Museum. 

See M. Fielding, Dictionary of American Painters, Sculptors and Engravers, Philadelphia, 

1926; T. Bolton, Early American Portrait Painters in Miniature, New York, 1921 


Woon, Josrern, b. about 1778, Clarkstown, Orange County, New York; d. about 1832, Wash- 
ington. Portrait painter in oils and miniature. 

Joseph Wood was the son of a farmer who was also Sheriff of Clarkstown, New York. His 
early inclination toward art is indicated by the story that his father locked him up in the 
courthouse steeple, when he was a boy, because he neglected his work about the house for 
drawing. 

Against the wishes of his father, he decided to become an artist, and with that end in view 
he started for New York, about 1794, with only a few dollars in his pocket. He wanted to paint 
landscapes, but chance turned his talents toward miniature painting, which happened in the 
following manner: after several years of struggling to exist, doing odd work in the winter and 
playing the violin in summer, he happened to see a miniature in the shop window of a silver- 
smith, and he asked for permission to copy it. He worked as a silversmith for several years, 
continuing to paint during his odd moments. John Wesley Jarvis formed a miniature painting 
partnership with him in 1804 at 37 Chatham Street, and Dunlap records a visit to their studio 
during the winter of 1805-06 in the company of Malbone, from whom both artists received 
some slight assistance. Wood left Jarvis and set up independently somewhere between 1807 

112 


™~ 


A BIoGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY OF THE ARTISTS 


and 1811. In 1812-13, his address in the New York directory is given as 160 Broadway. The 
latter year his name also appears in the Philadelphia directory, with 93 South Third Street as 
his address. His name occurs in the Philadelphia directories until 1817, and also in the exhibition 
catalogues of the Pennsylvania Academy. He moved, sometime later, to Washington, and there, 
according to the directory, he had a studio in 1827 on the north side of Pennsylvania Avenue 
between 9th and 10th Streets. He is said by Hart to have painted also in Baltimore. Dunlap 
gives some account of Joseph Wood, but the most extensive information is to be found in the 
Port-Folio for 1811. Besides painting miniatures on ivory, Joseph Wood also painted cabinet- 
sized portraits in oil. 


118 


GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY OF EARLY AMERICAN 
MINIATURE PAINTING 


GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY OF EARLY AMERICAN 
MINIATURE PAINTING 


Baker, William S. The Engraved Portraits of Washington, with biographical sketches of the 
painters. Philadelphia, 1880. Contains accounts of Field. 


Bayey, F. W. Little Known Early American Portrait Painters. 4 pamphlets. Boston, 1915-17. 
Contains account of Ramage, etc. Illustrated. 


Botron, Theodore. Early American Portrait Painters in Miniature. New York, 1921. A diction- 
ary of early American portrait painters in miniature with check lists of their work. Illus- 
trated. 


Cummines, Thomas 8. Historic Annals of the National Academy of Design. Philadelphia, 1865. 
Ranks next to Dunlap’s History in importance as a source book for information concerning 
early American artists. 


Donuap, William. History of the Rise and Progress of the Arts of Design in the United States. 
New York, 1834, 2 vols. New edition, Boston, 1918. 3 vols. Illustrated. The most important 
source book for information concerning early American artists. 


Foster, Joshua J. Miniature Painters, British and Foreign, with some account of those who 
practised in America in the Eighteenth Century. New York, 1903. 2 vols. Several illus- 
trations after Malbone, Fraser, and Trumbull. 


Frencu, Harry W. Art and Artists in Connecticut. Boston, 1879. 


Hart, Charles Henry. Catalogue of the works of American artists in the collection of Herbert 
L. Pratt. Privately printed. New York, 1917. 


Jounston, Elizabeth B. Original Portraits of Washington. Boston, 1882. Accounts of Birch, 
Robertson, Field, e¢ al. Tlustrated. 


Kexpy, William. Notes on American Artists, 1754-1820. New York, 1922. 
117 


GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY OF Earty AMERICAN MINIATURE PAINTING 


Ruope Isuanp Scuoot Or Design Bulletin, July, 1918. American miniatures. TIilustrated. 


Rosertson, Emily. Letters and Papers of Andrew Robertson. 1895. Contains a treatise on minia- 


ture painting by Archibald Robertson. 


Sraurrer, D. M. American Engravers upon Copper and Steel. New York, 1907. 2 vols. Many of 
the miniature painters were also engravers, and this work contains biographies of Field, 


Pelham, e¢¢ al. 


. 


TuCKERMAN, H. T. Book of the Artists. New York, 1867. 


Wuarron, Anne Hollingsworth. Heirlooms in Miniatures. Philadelphia, 1898. Deals almost 
exclusively with the early American miniature painters. Well illustrated. 


WiuaMson, G. C. The Miniature Collector. London, 1921. Contains a chapter on the Ameri- 
can miniature painters. Charles Fraser is called James Fraser. Richmond and Petersburgh, 
Virginia, are located in the state of Vermont. Eight pages. Four miniatures are attributed 


to Stuart. 


118 


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INDEX 


Accuzson, Masor-GEnerRaL THomas, portrait 
by Raphael Peale, 46. 

Adams, John, portrait by Trumbull, 28. 

Adams, Lewis, portrait by Trott, 42; ill. pl. XXV. 

Allston, Washington, encouraged Clark, 66; 
mentioned, 38, 39, 42; quotation from, 37. 

Ames, Ezra, biography of, 73; work by, ill. pl. 
XXXIV, XLII. 

‘Amory, Harcourt, Copley, self-portrait in pastels, 
property of. 25. 

Amory, Mrs. Thomas, portrait by Malbone, 40; 
ill. pl. XXIV. 

Anderson, Miss, portrait by Jarvis, 54; ill. pl. 
XXXIV. 


Anthony, Joseph, portrait by Stuart copied by 
Trott, 41. 

Appleton, Edward, Stuart miniature, formerly 
property of, 65. 

Appleton, Mrs. Thomas, mentioned, 64. 

Archer, Scott, mentioned, 68. 

Armstrong, Edward, portrait by Rogers, ill. pl. 
XLII. 

Armstrong, Col. and Mrs., portraits by W. 
Robertson, 32. 


Bantows, portraits by Fulton, of the, 22. 

Baron, Dr. Alexander, portrait by Fraser, 43; 
ill. pl. XXVIII. 

Barralet, J. J., engraver, 31. 

Barratt, Thomas E., work of, 45; ill. pl. XX XV. 

Barrell, Joseph, portrait by Copley, ill. pl. IX. 

Bartolozzi, engraving of, copied by Malbone, 38. 

Bass, Sally, pastel portrait by Williams, 64. 

Battoni, teacher of Benbridge and West, 22. 

Bayley, F. W., mentioned, 31. 

Beck, Paul, portrait by J. Peale, ill. pl. V. 

Belzons, drawing master to Sully, 47. 

Benbridge, Henry, biography of, 74; instructor 
of Sully, 48; work of, 22, 23; ill. pl. VII. 

Bening, Alexander, mentioned, 8. 

Bergh, Charles Edwin I, portrait by Catlin, 59; 
ill. pl. XXXV. 

Biddle, Mrs. Edward, portrait by Freeman, 49. 

Biddle, Nicholas, portrait by Trott, 42; ill. pl. 
XXYV. 


121 


Biddle and Fielding, book on Sully, 48. 

Bigelow, Mary Langrell (Mrs. Aaron Olmsted), 
portrait by Dunlap, 53. 

Bingham, William, portrait by C. W. Peale, 19; 
ill. pl. IIT. 

Birch, William Russell, biography of, 74; work 
of, 34; ill. pl. XTX. 

Blackburn, possible teacher of Copley, 25. 

Bleecker (?), Anthony, portrait by Tisdale, ill. 
pl. XTX. 

Bleecher, Mrs. Nicholas, portrait by Malbone, 39. 

Blight, Mrs. Robert Fulton, mentioned, 22. 

Bogert, James, Jr., portrait by Inman, 57; ill. 
pl. XX XVII. 

Boston Independent Chronicle, Dunkerley’s pro- 
fessional notices in, 27. 

Boston Museum of Fine Arts, 18, 64. 

Bowdoin College, 65. 

Britton, Eleanor, portrait by A. C. Peale, 46; 
ill. pl. XXXII. 

Bromfield, Sally, fiancée of Pelham, 26. 

Brooklyn Museum, Exhibition of Early American 
Paintings, 17. 

Brown, Abijah, portrait by Raphael Peale, 44. 

Brown, Charles Brockden, portrait by Dunlap, 
53. 

Brown, John Henry, mentioned, 69. 

Brune, Mrs. John Christian, portrait by Simes, 
47; ill. pl. XXXII. 

Bulfinch, Mr. and Mrs. Charles, portraits by 
Dunkerley, 27. 

Burns, Mr. and Mrs. Robert D., portraits by 
Simes, 47. 

Burroughs, Henry, portrait by Williams, 64; ill. 
pl. XLIV. 

Burroughs, Mary, portrait by Dunkerley, 27; 
ill. pl. X. 

Byron, Lord, portrait by Saunders, 50. 


Caxveer, GrorGE, portrait by Oliver, 13. 

Calvert, supposed to be Ariana, portrait by W. 
Robertson, 32. 

Carlin, miniature by, ill. pl. XLI. 

Cary, Mr. and Mrs. Samuel, portraits by Copley, 
25; ill. pl. IX. 


INDEX 


Catlin, George, biography of, 75; portrait by 
Dodge, 60; ill. pl. XX XV; work of, 59, 60; ill. 
pl. XX XV. 

Charlotte, Princess, portrait by Saunders, 50. 

Charlotte, Queen, patron of Miles, 34. 

Chase, Frances Townley (Mrs. Richard Locker- 
man), portrait by Field, 33; ill. pl. XVII. 

Clark, Alvan, biography of, 75; work of, 66; ill. 
pl. XLVII. 

Clark, Mrs. Alvan, portrait by Clark, ill. pl. 
XLVII. 

Clarke, Jonathan, portrait by Pelham, 26. 

Clay, Henry, portrait by MacDougall, 61; ill. 
pl. XXXYV. 

Claypoole, James, master of Pratt, 17; mentioned, 
16. 

Clinton, Governor and Mrs. DeWitt, portraits 
by Catlin, 60. 

Clouet, Jean, mentioned, 8, 9. 

Clovio, Giulio, mentioned, 9. 

Coale, Edward Johnson, portrait by Trott, ill. 
pl. XXVI. 

Coale, Mrs. George O. G., niece of Staigg, 67. 

Cohen, Benjamin L., portrait by Raphael Peale, 44. 

Colden, Cadwallader, oil portrait by Pratt, 17. 

Collas, miniature by, ill. pl. XX XI. 

Cook, Jane (Mrs. T. S. Cummings), mentioned, 
58; portrait by Cummings, 59; ill. pl. XL. 

Copley, John Singleton, biography of, 75; men- 
tioned, 18, 36, 39; self-portrait, 24; ill. pl. 
IX; work of, 24, 25; ill. pl. IX. 

Cosway, mentioned, 39; use of ivory and method 
of painting, 10, 11. 

Coverly, Edward, portrait by Williams, 64; ill. 
pl. XLIV. 

Craig, Mrs. (Mrs. E. Biddle), mentioned, 49. 

Crosse, Laurence, miniature in style of, 13. 

Cummings, Jane Cooke, portrait by Cummings, 
59; ill. pl. XL. 

Cummings, Thomas Seir, biography of, 76; 
mention of, 69; partner of Inman, 57; quota- 
tion from, 1, 2; work of, 58, 59; ill. pl. XL, 
XLI 


Cushman, Charlotte, portrait by MacDougall, 61. 

Custis, Martha, descendant of, owner of Wash- 
ington portrait by W. Robertson, 31. 

Custis, Nellie, mentioned, 34. 

Cuvier, portrait by Rembrandt Peale, 45. 


Dacuunnz, mentioned, 68. 
David, portrait by Rembrandt Peale, 45. 


122 


De Lancey, Elizabeth Colden, portrait by Pratt» 
17. 

De Lancey, Mrs. Peter, portrait of, ill. pl. XIX. 

De Lancey, Warren, oil portrait by Pratt, 17. 

Denon, portrait by Rembrandt Peale, 45. 

De Pont, A. A. P. B., portrait by J. Peale, ill. 
pl. VI. 

Derby, Mrs. Richard, portrait by Malbone, 39; 
ill. pl. XX. 

Dickens, Charles, mentioned, 57. 

Dickinson, Anson, biography of, 79; mentioned, 
56; work of, 51, 52; ill. pl. XXXIV, XX XVII. 

Dodge, John Wood, biography of, 79; work of, 
60, 61, ill. pl. XX XV. 

Dorlon, Robert, portrait by Dickinson, 52; ill. 
pl. XXXIV. 

Drayton, Mrs. John (Hester Rose Tidyman), 
portrait by W. Robertson, 32. 

Dunkerley, Joseph, biography of, 79; mentioned, 
64; work of, 27; ill. pl. X. 

Dunlap, William, biography of, 80; mentioned, 
13, 17, 23, 30, 32, 40, 41, 44, 47, 51, 54, 56, 61; 
quotations from, 29, 31, 37, 41, 48, 53, 54, 
62; work of, 52, 53; ill. pl. XXXVI. 

DuPuy, Herbert, collection, 39, 46. 

Dwight, President of Yale, brother-in-law of Dun- 
lap, 53. 


Ean, James, portrait by Field, 33; ill. pl. 
XXXVII. 

Edouart, silhouette of Ann Hall, 63. 

Edwin, David, teacher of Jarvis, 54. 

Eichholtz, Jacob, work of, 45. 

Elder, Josiah, portrait by Barratt, 45; ill. pl. 
XXXV. 

Ellicott, Andrew, portrait by Raphael Peale, 
44, 46, 

Elliott, Charles Loring, mentioned, 69. 

Elouis, Jean Pierre Henri, biography of, 82; 
miniature wrongly attributed to, 32; work 
of, 34; ill. pl. XIII. 

Everett, Edward, portrait by Staigg, 67. 

Ewing, Dr. James Sergeant, portrait by Field, 
33; ill, pl. XVII. 


Fines JOHANN, mentioned, 13. 

Fenno, Eliza, portrait by Malbone, 39; ill. pl. 
XXXVII. 

Field, Robert, biography of, 83; engraver of 
miniature by W. Robertson, 31, 33; men- 


INDEX 


tioned, 32, 69; work of, 33, 34; ill. pl. XVII, 
XVII, XXX, XXXVII. 

Fish, Nicholas, portrait by Malbone, 39; ill. 
pl. XXIII. 

Floyd, Charles, portrait by Trott, 41. 

Forward, Hon. Walter, portrait by Clark, 66; 
ill. pl. XLVII. 

Fragonard, mentioned, 1. 

Francis I, illuminated book of, 8. 

Franklin, Benjamin, portrait by Benbridge, 22. 

Fraser, Charles, biography of, 84; mentioned, 36, 
41, 69; work of, 42, 43; ill. pl. XV, XXII, 
XXVIII, XXVIII, XXIX, XXX. 

Free Society of Artists, London, 11, 18. 

Freeman, George, work of, 49. 

French, H. W., mentioned, 62; quotation from, 
51, 60. 

Fulton, Robert, biography of, 87; work of, 21, 
22; ill. pl. VII, VIII. 

Fulton, Mrs. Robert (Harriet Livingston), 
portrait by Fulton, 22; ill. pl. VII. 


Cy Apeney: Mrs. CurisToPpHEeR, portrait by 
Benbridge, ill. pl. VII. 

Gale, J. W. (?), portrait by Dickinson, 52; ill. pl. 
XXXVII. 

Gay-Lussac, portrait by Rembrandt Peale, 45. 

Gems, Greek and Roman portrait, 6. 

Gerry, Mr. and Mrs. Elbridge, portraits by Ra- 
mage, 29; ill. p. XIII. 

Gilmor, Mrs., portrait by Fraser, 43. 

Goodridge, Sarah, biography of, 88; mentioned, 
69; work of, 64-66; ill. pl. XLV, XLVI, 
XLVI. 

Gordon, Henry, portrait attributed to Hesselius, 
Nes 


Gordon family, portrait by Benbridge, 22. 
Gourdin, James, portrait by Fraser, 43; ill. pl. 
XXIX 


Gourdin, Mrs. Theodore, portrait by Fraser, 43; 
ill. pl. XV. 

Goya, mentioned, 1. 

Gratz, Rebecca, portrait by Malbone, 40; ill. 
pl. XX 

Greene, Mrs., mother of Edward Greene Mal- 
bone, mentioned, 37. 

Greene, General Nathanael, portrait by C. W. 
Peale, 19; ill. pl. X. 

Greenleaf, Mrs. James, Stuart portrait of, copied 
by Trott, 41; ill. pl. XX VI. 

Grey, Lady Jane, portrait by Fulton, 22. 


123 


Has. Awnn, biography of, 88; work of, 62, 63; 
ill. pl. XX XIX. 

Hall, Dr. Jonathan, father of Ann Hall, 62. 

Hamilton, Alexander, portrait by Trumbull, 28. 

Hamilton, Mrs. Alexander, portrait by Inman, 
57; il. pl. XX XTX. 

Hancock, John, portrait of, ill. pl. XIX. 

Hancock family, portrait by Carlin (?) of a lady 
of the, ill. pl. XLI. 

Hardie, Captain and Mrs. Robert, portraits by 
Simes, 47. 

Harris, Charles, portrait by Malbone, 39; ill. 
pl. X XT. 

Hart, Charles Henry, discoverer of Benbridge, 
22; mentioned, 32, 34. 

Haskell, Major Jonathan, portrait by W. 
Robertson, 32; ill. pl. XVI. 

Hawley, Jesse, portrait by Ames, ill. pl. XLII. 

Healy, G. P. A., mentioned, 69. 

Henry VIII, portrait of, 7. 

Henry, Mr. and Mrs. William, portraits by West, 
16. 

Hesselius, John, instructor of C. W. Peale, 18; 
work of, 15. 

Hilliard, Nicholas, mentioned, 39; miniature in 
the style of, 13; quotation from, 8, 37. 

Holbein, mentioned, 1; method of painting, 10. 

Hooper, Stephen, portrait by Pelham, 26; ill. 
pl. XV. 

Hopkinson, Mrs. Thomas, oil portrait by Pratt 
(?), 17; portrait of, 15, 16; ill. pl. II. 

Horenbout, Lucas, miniaturist to Henry VIII, 8. 

Horenbout, Susanna, miniaturist to Henry 
ViLlined 

Houdon, portrait by Rembrandt Peale, 45. 

Hubbert, Thankful, portrait by Copley, 25. 

Huger, Mrs., portrait of, ill. pl. XX XV. 

Huger, Francis K., portrait by Fraser, ill. pl. 
XXITX. 

Hulings, Dr. William E., portrait by J. Peale, 
ill. pl. VI. 

Hulings, Mrs. William E., portrait by J. Peale, 
ill. pl. IV. 

Humboldt, Baron von, accompanied by Elouis on 
expedition, 34, 35; portrait by Rembrandt 
Peale, 45. 

Hunt, William Morris, mentioned, 69. 

Huntington, Daniel, mentioned, 69. 


Laan, Henry, apprenticed to Jarvis, 54, 56; 
biography of, 89; mentioned, 1; partner of 


INDEX 


Cummings, 57; work of, 56, 57, ill. pl. 
XXXVI, XXXVII, XXXVUI, XXXIX. 
Irving, Washington, mentioned, 57. 
Izard, Mrs. Ralph, portrait by Fraser, 43; ill. 
pl. XXVIII. 


J AcKSON, ANDREW, portrait by Dodge, 61. 

Jackson, Estate of Andrew, Catlin miniature 
property of, 60. 

Jackson, Mrs. Andrew, portrait by Anna C. 
Peale, 46. 

Jarvis, John Wesley, biography of, 90; mentioned, 
51; partner of Wood, 54; teacher of Sully, 
48; work of 53-55; ill. pl. XXXIV, XXXVIT. 

Jefferson, Thomas, portrait by Trumbull, 29; 
ill. pl. XI. 

Johnson, Eastman, mentioned, 69. 

Johnson, John, pastel wrongly attributed to, 64. 

Joy, Mrs. Benjamin, portrait by Goodridge, 66; 
ill. pl. XLVI. 


Kacrrwan, ANGELICA, mentioned, 22, 38. 

Keith, Sir William, portrait by Watson, 13. 

Kelso, James, portrait by MacDougall, 61. 

Key, Mrs. Francis Scott (Mary Tayloe Lloyd), 
portrait by Field, 33; ill. pl. XVIII. 

King, Samuel, encouraged Ann Hall, 62; and 
Malbone, 37. 

Kittera, Mr. and Mrs. John W., portraits by 
Fulton, 21. 

Knox, General, portrait and miniature by Stuart, 
65; miniature after Stuart by Goodridge, 65; 
ill. pl. XLY. 


Lanson, Saran, portrait by Fraser, ill. pl. 
XXVILI. 

Lafayette, portrait by Birch, 34; ill. pl. XIX. 

Lambdin, James R., painted oil portrait of Miles, 
34; work by, ill. pl. XLII. 

Laurance, John, portrait by Trumbull, ill. pl. XI. 

Laurens, John, mentioned, 14. 

Lawrence, Abbott, portrait by Staigg, 67. 

Lawrence, Sir Thomas, mentioned, 1, 22, 39; 
studied by Sully, 49. 

Lens, Bernard, use of ivory, 10. 

Linzee, Mr. and Mrs. John Inman, portraits by 
Staigg, 67; ill. pl. XLVIII. 

Livingston, Chancellor, patron of Fulton, 22. 

Livingston, John, portrait by Fulton, 22. 

Livingston, Mrs. Walter, portrait by Fulton, 22. 


124 


Lloyd, Mary Tayloe, portrait by Field, 33; ill. 
pl. XVIII. 

Lockerman, Mr. and Mrs. Richard, portraits by 
Field, 33; ill. pl. XVII. 

Longacre’s National Portrait Gallery, 32. 

Lossing, Benson J., portrait by Cummings, 59; 
ill. pl. XLI. 

Louis XVI, in prison, portrait by Fulton, 22. 

Lowell, Dr. and Mrs. James Russell, portraits 
by Staigg, 67. 

Lowndes, Mrs. James, portreit by Malbone, 39, 
40; ill. pl. XXII. § 

Ludlow, Mr. Gulian, portrait by Ramage, ill. 
pl. XIII. 


MacDouearz, Joun ALEXANDER, biography of, 
91; mentioned, 59, 69; work of, 61, 62; ill. 


pl. XXXY. 
Macomb, Alexander, portrait by W. Robertson, 
32. 


Macomb, Mrs. Alexander N., portrait by Trott, 
42; ill. pl. XX VI. 

Madison, Dolly, portrait of, ill. pl. XXXII. 

Malbone, Edward Greene, biography of, 91; 
demonstrated method to Wood, 55; early 
inspiration to Fraser, 42; imitated by Dick- 
inson, 51; mentioned, 25, 32, 41, 49, 66, 69; 
self-portrait, 38, ill. frontispiece; work of, 
36-40; ill. pl. XX, XXI, XXII, XXII, 
XXIV, XXVIII, XXX. 

Malbone, John, mentioned, 37. 

Manigault, Mrs. Gabriel, portrait by Rogers, 
ill. pl. XLII. 

Mary, Queen of Scots, portrait by Fulton, 22. 

Mazyck, Isaac, portrait of, 13. 

Means, Thomas, portrait by Malbone, ill. pl. 
XXIII. 

Melville, Deborah Scollay, portrait by Copley, 
25; ill. pl. IX. 

Mengs, teacher of Benbridge and West, 22. 

Metropolitan Museum of Art, 16, 20, 27, 32, 54, 
60, 64. 


-Miles, Edward, work of, 34. 


Miller, W. S., portrait by Copley (?), ill. pl. IX. 

Morgan, Dr. John, quotation from, 22. 

Morgan Collection, 13. 

Moses, David, portrait by Malbone, ill. pl. XXII. 

Moses, Solomon, portrait by Malbone, ill. pl. 
XXI. 

Motte, Mrs. Jacob, portrait by Thetis, 13; ill. 
pl. II. 


INDEX 


Musgrave, Mrs. William (Eleanor Britton), 
portrait by Anna C. Peale, 46. 


EN ere AT. AcaveEmy or Desian, 57, 58, 59, 61, 62. 

Neagle, quotation from, 17. 

New York City Hall, naval heroes painted for, 
by Jarvis, 55. 

New York Historical Society, 30. 

New York University, 59. 

Nolen, Michael, portrait attributed to W. 
Robertson, 32. 

Nutter, engraver of Malbone’s Hours, 39. 


Oaozn, Henry, portrait by Fraser, 43; ill. pl. 
XXVII. 

Oliver, Peter, miniature by, 13. 

Olmsted, Mrs. Aaron (Mary L. Bigelow), portrait 
by Dunlap, 53; ill. pl. XXXVI. 

Ott, Monsieur, miniature by Sully, 47. 


1 fe ARSONS, THEOPHILUS, portrait by Goodridge, 
ill. pl. XLVII. 

Peale, Anna Claypoole, biography of, 95; portrait 
by J. Peale, ill. pl. V; work of, 46; ill. pl. 
X, XXII. 

Peale, Charles Willson, biography of, 95; men- 
tioned, 16, 36, 44; work of, 18-20; ill. pl. 
iI, IV, X, XXX. 

Peale, Eleanor, portrait by C. W. Peale, ill. pl. 


It. 

Peale, James, biography of, 96; mentioned, 46; 
self-portrait, ill. pl. VI; teacher of Fulton, 
21; work of, 20, 21, ill. pl. IV, V, VI. 

Peale, Mary Claypoole, portrait by J. Peale, 21; 
ill. pl. V. 

Peale, Rachel Brewer, portrait by C. W. Peale, 
ill. pl. III. 

Peale, Raphael, biography of, 97; work of, 44; 
ill. pl. XX XT. 

Peale, Rembrandt, biography of, 97; mentioned, 
19, 20; portrait'by J. Peale, ill. pl. IV; work of, 
44, 45. 

Peale, Rubens, portrait by Rembrandt Peale, 45. 

Peale, Sarah, aunt of Mary Jane Simes, 47. 

Pearce, Benjamin, portrait by Raphael Peale, 46. 

Pearce, Henry Ward, portrait by Raphael Peale, 
46. 

Pelham, Henry, biography of, 98; portrait by 
Copley, 18; work of, 25-27; ill. pl. X, XV. 

Pelham, Peter, stepfather of Copley, 24, 25, 26: 

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 16, 19. 


125 


Pennsylvania, Historical Society of, 13, 16, 21. 

Peticolas, Philip A., biography of, 98; miniature 
by, ill. pl. XTX. 

Pinckney, Josiah, portrait by J. Peale, 21. 

Pinckney, Mrs. Josiah, portrait by J. Peale, 21; 
ill. pl. VI. 

Pintard, Mr. and Mrs. John, portraits by Ra- 
mage, 29; ill. pl. XIV. 

Pisanello, portrait medals by, 6. 

Plumsted, Mary McCall, portrait of, 15. 

Poe, Edgar Allan, portrait by MacDougall, 61. 

Poinier, John Woods, portrait by Trott, 42. 

Poinsett, Miss, portrait by Malbone, 39; ill. pl. 
XX. 


Poinsett, Joel, portrait by Malbone, 39, 40; ill. 
pl. XXII. 

Port-Folio, in 1813, quotation from, 36. 

Power, Nicholas, portrait by Malbone, 38; ill. 
pl. XX. 

Pratt, Henry, goldsmith; father of Matthew, 17. 

Pratt, Mrs. Henry (Rebecca Claypoole), portrait 
of, 15, 16; ill. pl. I. 

Pratt, Collection, 32, 34. 

Pratt, Matthew, biography of, 99; work of, 16, 
17; ill. pl. IT. 

Proud, John Greene, portrait by Wood, 55; ill. 
pl. XXXVI. 

Providence Atheneum, 38. 


Ramace, JouN, biography of, 100; work of, 29, 
30; ill. pl. XIIT, XIV, XV. 

Restout, teacher of Elouis, 34. 

Revere, Mrs.-Paul, portrait by Dunkerley, 27. 

Reynolds, employer of Birch, 34. 

Rhode Island School of Design, 42. 

Rochambeau, Comte de, portrait by C. W. 
Peale, 20; ill. pl. IIT. 

Robertson, Alexander, academy of painting, 62; 
mentioned, 30. 

Robertson, Andrew, mentioned, 30. 

Robertson, Archibald, biography of, 100; self- 
portrait, ill. pl. IV; work of, 30; ill. pl. IV, 
XII 


Robertson, Eliza Abramse, portrait by Archibald 
Robertson, 30; ill. pl. XII. 

Robertson, Walter, biography of, 101; mentioned, 
41, 69; self-portrait, 30; work of, 30-32; ill. 
pl. XIV, XV, XVI, XVII. 

Rogers, Nathaniel, biography of, 101; helped 
Wood in adversity, 56; work of, 61; ill. pl. 
XLIT. 


INDEX 


Ross, Clementina, portrait by Fulton, 21. 

Rothmaler, Elizabeth (Mrs. Paul Trapier), oil 
portrait by Theiis, 14; ill. pl. I. 

Royal Academy, 22, 26, 34. 

Rutgers, Antony, portrait by Ramage, ill. pl. XV. 


Sarcenr, Soputa CARROLL, portrait by Saun- 
ders, 49; ill. pl. XXXII. 

Sargent, Thomas Bartow, portrait by Saunders, 
49; ill. pl. XX XIII. 

Sarmiento, Miss (Mrs. E. Biddle), mention of, 49. 

Saunders, George L., biography of, 103; men- 
tioned, 69; work of, 49, 50; ill. pl. XX XIII. 

Savage, Edward, biography of, 103; employed by 
Jarvis and Edwin, 54; work of, 27; ill. pl. 
IX. 

Sears, David, portrait by Staigg, 67. 

Seaver, Eben, portrait by Savage, 27. 

Seaver, Sarah (Mrs. Edward Savage), portrait 
by Savage, 27. 

Seward, W. H., portrait by Inman, 57. 

Sheftall, Mrs. Mordecai, portrait by J. Peale, 
ill. pl. VI. 

Shelley, mentioned, 39. 

Shepheard, Captain Charles, portrait by Ben- 
bridge, ill. pl. VII. 

Shoemaker, Mrs. Caroline, miniature by Sully, 
49; ill. pl. XX XT. 

Simes, Mary Jane, biography of, 103; work of, 
46, 47; ill. pl. XXXII. 

Simes, Samuel, father of Mary Jane Simes, 47. 

Small, Captain John, quotation from, 25. 

Smibert, instructor of Copley, 25; mentioned, 18. 

Smith, Alice R. H., illustrates Fraser miniature, 
43. 

Smith, William Loughton, portrait by Trumbull, 
ill. pl. X. 

Somersall, Mrs. William, portrait by Benbridge, 
ill. pl. VII. 

Staigg, Richard Morrell, biography of, 104; 
mentioned, 69; work of, 66, 67; ill. pl. 
XLVIII. 

Startin, Mrs. Charles, gives order to Pelham, 26. 

Staughton, Mrs. A. C., married name of Anna 
C. Peale, 46. 

Steel, painter, instructor of C. W. Peale, 18. 

Stevens, William Wagnall, portrait by Pelham, 
26; ill. pl. X. 

Stuart, Gilbert, biography of, 104; mentioned, 
2, 30, 32, 33, 41; only miniature by, 65; 
ill, pl. XLV; portrait by Ames, ill. pl. 


126 


_ XXXIV; portrait by Goodridge, 66; ill. 

pl. XLVI; teacher of Sully, 48. 

Stuart, Jane, encouraged Clark, 66. 

Sully (?), Miss, portrait of, ill: pl. XXXYV. 

Sully, Lawrence, work of, 47; ill. pl. XXXII. 

Sully, Thomas, biography of, 105; instructed by 
Benbridge, 23; mentioned, 1; work of, 47-49; 
ill. pl. XX XI, XXXII. 

Sully, Mrs. Thomas, portrait by Sully, ill. pl. 
XXXII. 

Summers, Mr. and Mrs. Andrew, portraits by 
C. W. Peale, 19, ill. pl. IIT. 

Sweeney, Doyle E., portrait by Raphael Peale, 
44; ill. pl. XXXT. 


T ancy, Mrs. Micuakt, portrait by C. W. Peale, 
ill. pl. IIT. 

Taylor, Archibald, portrait by Malbone, 39, 40; 
ill. pl. X XT. 

Taylor, Emily Drayton, mentioned, 65. 

Theiis, Jeremiah, biography of, 107; work of, 13, 
14; ill. pl. I. 

Tidyman, Mrs. Philip, portrait by W. Robertson, 
32; ill. pl. XVI. 

Tidyman, Hester Rose, portrait by W. Robertson, 
32; ill. pl. XVI. 

Timothy, Elizabeth Ann, portrait by Benbridge, 
23; ill. pl. VII. 

Tisdale, Elkanah, mentioned, 108; miniature by, 
ill. pl. XTX. 

Trapier, Mrs. Benjamin F., portrait by Malbone, 
ill. pl. XXT. 

Trapier, Mrs. Paul (Elizabeth Rothmaler), por- 
trait by Theiis, 14; ill. pl. I. 

Treat, Henry Browse, portrait by Elouis, 34; 
ill. pl. XIM. 

Trott, Benjamin, biography of, 107; mentioned, 
31, 36, 69; work of, 40-42; ill. pl. XV, XXV, 
XXVI. 

Trumbull, John, biography of, 108; work of, 27; 
ill. pl. X, XI. 

Trumbull, Governor Jonathan, father of John 
Trumbull, 27. 

Tuckerman, H. T., quotation from, 56, 69. 


NV anpeseur. CommoporeE, portrait by Mac- 
Dougall, 61. 

Van Horne, Augustus Vallette, portrait by W. 
Robertson, 32; ill. pl. XVI. 

Van Mander, quotation from, 1, 8. 


er 


INDEX 


Van Rensselaer, Mrs. Stephen III (Cornelia), 
portrait by Fulton, 22; ill. pl. VIII. 

Varick, Richard, portrait by Inman, 57. 

Vasari, quotation from, 9. 

Vincent, Polly, portrait by Lambdin, ill. pl. 
XLII. 


W aw, Miss, portrait by Trott, 42. 

Waln, Nicholas, portrait by Field, 33. 

Waln, William, portrait by Elouis, 34. 

Walpole, Horace, quotation from, 1; mentioned, 
40. 

Ward, Eliza Hall, portrait with her sister and son 
by Ann Hall, 62; ill. pl. XX XIX. 

Washington, George, portrait by Birch, 34; 
portrait by Field, ill. pl. XVIII; portraits 
by C. W. Peale, 19, 20; ill. pl. I, IV, 
portrait by Rembrandt Peale, 44; portrait by 
Ramage, 29, ill. pl. XIV; portrait by Archi- 
bald Robertson, 30; portrait by W. Robert- 
son, 30-32, ill. pl. XIV; portrait by Savage, 
27; portraits by Stuart copied by Field, 33. 

Washington, Mrs. George, portrait by Ramage, 
29; portrait by Archibald Robertson, 30; 
portrait by W. Robertson, 32, 34; ill. pl. XV. 

Washington National Museum, 17. 

Watson, John, biography of, 111; self-portrait, 
ill. pl. I; work of, 13. 

Watts, Mrs. Roberts, portrait by Dickinson, 52; 
ill. pl. XX XTV. 

Webster, Daniel, daguerreotype of, 68; portrait 
by Goodridge, ill. pl. XLV. 

Wentworth, Sir John, mentioned, 34. 

Wertmiiller, his painting of Danaé admired by 
Inman, 56. 


127 


West, Benjamin, advice to Sully, 48; biography 
of,\111; London studio of, 17, 21; mentioned, 
22, 38, 53; portrait by Pratt, 16; work of, 16; 
il. pl. IT. 

West, Elizabeth (Mrs. Benjamin West), portrait 
by Pratt, 16, ill. pl. IT. 

Wharton, Anne Hollingsworth, 15, 46. 

Wilcocks, Benjamin Chew, patron of Sully, 48; 
portraits by Saunders, 50; portrait by Trott, 
42. 

Wilcocks, Mrs. Benjamin Chew, portrait by 
Saunders, 50. 

Wilkins, Charles, portrait by Trott, 41; ill. pl. 
XV. 

Williams, Alyn, miniature by Archibald Robert- 
son, property of, 30. 

Williams, Henry, biography of, 112; work of, 
64; ill. pl. XLIV. 

Wilson, Mrs. John, portrait by J. Peale, ill. pl. V. 

Wilson, Rev. Robert, quotation from, 14. 

Winthrop, Jane, portrait by Fraser, 43; ill. pl. 
XXII. 

Winthrop, John, portrait of, 13. 

Wollaston, John, teacher of Benbridge, 22; work 
of, 15. 

Wood, Joseph, biography of, 112; partner of 
Jarvis, 54; teacher of Rogers, 61; work of, 
55, 56; ill. pl. XXXVI. 

Woolsey family, Dunlap married into, 53. 

Wragg, major, portrait by Malbone, 40. 

Wroth, Peregrine, portrait by Trott, 41; ill. pl. 
XXVI. 


PVearne: LAWRENCE REI, portrait by W. Robert- 
son, 32; ill. pl. XVII. 


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